A spineless, special-interest-catering Congress PASSED the law that allowed the States to rebel on this issue. Otherwise, Congress has the power to fix the system of weights and measures. In this case, Congress was fixin' to get campaign contributions. The States just chose to use a power Congress ceded to them (unfortunately all 50 made the same choice). Both roads and road contractors cross state lines. It would be MUCH smarter to have a nation-wide plan with steps that go by industry or field. However, unless Congress assumes their responsibility to fix the system of weights and measures (and chooses SI) it is all just idle talk. Congress' present position is that metric is preferred but entirely voluntary; no one can be forced to metricate. Changing that is step 1. Developing a comprehensive and sensible plan to metricate is probably step 2.
--- On Thu, 9/8/11, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote: From: [email protected] <[email protected]> Subject: [USMA:51101] Re: Question about metric highway requirements To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]> Date: Thursday, September 8, 2011, 8:51 AM Flawed, that is funny coming from a DOT personal. The States are the ones that is screwing the whole Metrication up, sorry voluntary is a non word in industry it is all regulated, every step of the way. Every industry in the whole state would be required to convert over in three years time, from schools to shit port-a-potties. Bruce E. Arkwright, Jr Erie PA Linux and Metric User and Enforcer I will only invest in nukes that are 150 gigameters away. How much solar energy have you collected today? Id put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we dont have to wait til oil and coal run out before we tackle that. I wish I had a few more years left. -- Thomas Edison♽☯♑ On Sep 8, 2011, Ressel, Howard (DOT) <[email protected]> wrote: With due respect, I think your plan is flawed, you cannot convert the US purely on geographical terms. You have to do it a sector or industry at a time. The mistake we made with State highway agencies was that we neglected the rest of the construction industry. Contractors had to build in English for private work and metric for public work. This lead to confusion especially in the supply chain. I think the easily first step is the food and packaging industry. There are so many examples how it’s easy and causes no problems (i.e. wine, liquor, soda for the most part). Converting the rest of the industry would not be hard to do. It’s actually happening voluntarily now in many places. Companies produce more and more substituted metric sizes and label products in metric first or round metric sizes. From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, September 07, 2011 4:10 PM To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:51097] Re: Question about metric highway requirements Yea, it really gets my goat, this is what I propose... http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Convert-USA-to-100-Metric-System/ Bruce E. Arkwright, Jr Erie PA Linux and Metric User and Enforcer I will only invest in nukes that are 150 gigameters away. How much solar energy have you collected today? Id put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we dont have to wait til oil and coal run out before we tackle that. I wish I had a few more years left. -- Thomas Edison♽☯♑ On Sep 7, 2011, Parker Willey Jr. <[email protected]> wrote: I have a question about metric highway requirements. In this memorandum: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/programadmin/contracts/1108metr.cfm Apparently, all state highway agencies have changed their internal requirements to use only colonial units and not use metric at all. There seems to be a clarification probably to state highway departments. It seems to say there is no requirement to use or to not use metric units. Then, I assume that a state highway department can use metric in it's designs if it wants to and still qualify for federal funding. Is that what I am seeing? I believe that when foreigners come to the US and see our peculiar colonial highway measures, they then will not buy our products as they will probably be not dimensioned in metric units. How can we push the highway departments to get on the metric system? Any ideas? ...Parker
