Metric Signage

[M86]

I used to live in South Dakota, and I remember seeing the odd split metric signs.
Sioux City, Iowa Journal did an article: http://siouxcityjournal.com/lifestyles/trends/how-fast-kilometers-on-union-county-s-d-signs-a/article_ea34b317-bb79-5614-9290-69ba46c6cb23.html

There were signs in the Aberdeen, South Dakota area... but they are long gone.

Here's a sign:  SD 42 (West 12th Street) in Sioux Falls:  http://goo.gl/maps/pDvEv

[Road Hog]

When I was a kid I remember seeing a "Nashville 100 mi/162 km" sign on I-40 eastbound. That sign is long gone.

[US 41]

I often wonder if the US will ever go full metric at some point in the future.

[Road Hog]

I often wonder if the US will ever go full metric at some point in the future.

Probably will be a mix like the UK, where miles are still used but common store items will be sized metrically. Sodas have been sold in liters is the US for years, for example, and I'm seeing more and more items sized in round metric numbers (a 500-mL bottle of shampoo, for example). One thing I doubt will change is switching to the Celsius scale, and another is buying gas and milk by the U.S. gallon. Americans are notoriously set in our ways.

[mrsman]

I often wonder if the US will ever go full metric at some point in the future.

Probably will be a mix like the UK, where miles are still used but common store items will be sized metrically. Sodas have been sold in liters is the US for years, for example, and I'm seeing more and more items sized in round metric numbers (a 500-mL bottle of shampoo, for example). One thing I doubt will change is switching to the Celsius scale, and another is buying gas and milk by the U.S. gallon. Americans are notoriously set in our ways.

I tend to agree.  I don't think we'll ever see mileage being replaced for land measurement on highways, particularly because so much of the West and Midwest is based on perfect mile grids.  Think of Chicago, where every major street is exactly 1 mile apart.  It is so easy to say that Western is a mile west of Ashland which is a mile west of Halsted.  It's harder to say instead 1.61 km.

[agentsteel53]

I tend to agree.  I don't think we'll ever see mileage being replaced for land measurement on highways, particularly because so much of the West and Midwest is based on perfect mile grids.  Think of Chicago, where every major street is exactly 1 mile apart.  It is so easy to say that Western is a mile west of Ashland which is a mile west of Halsted.  It's harder to say instead 1.61 km.

how did Canada manage it?  don't they have a lot of old mile-based surveying as well?

[Avalanchez71]

When I was a kid I remember seeing a "Nashville 100 mi/162 km" sign on I-40 eastbound. That sign is long gone.

There were some on I-24 as well if I can recall.  New administration came in and took them down.  Some say it was too foreign.

[Brandon]

I tend to agree.  I don't think we'll ever see mileage being replaced for land measurement on highways, particularly because so much of the West and Midwest is based on perfect mile grids.  Think of Chicago, where every major street is exactly 1 mile apart.  It is so easy to say that Western is a mile west of Ashland which is a mile west of Halsted.  It's harder to say instead 1.61 km.

how did Canada manage it?  don't they have a lot of old mile-based surveying as well?

They use a mixture of units.  Canada is not fully metric, and probably never will be (nor should it or us ever be).  The building trades (for example) have never switched.  Canadians use square feet, inches, etc for building structures.

Even out on the Prairies, miles are still given for distances due to the survey grid.

Personally, I see no real good reason to fully switch.

[algorerhythms]

I'm sort of two minds on this subject: as a scientist I use metric units for all my measurements, so clearly that leads me to favor the metric system.

However, the original purpose of the metric system was to get rid of the ambiguity that traditional units had. When Isaac Newton was writing his works, he couldn't simply describe a measurement as, say, "10 feet". He had to specify which foot he was using to measure, because every city had their own definition. Most of that ambiguity has been removed since then, though there is still some ambiguity in volume measurements (e.g. the British pint vs. the American pint). At this point, though, if someone specifies a measurement in feet, it is unambiguous what they mean, which means the foot is not a problematic unit to use the way it was back in Newton's time. This is why I don't think the U.S. will ever give up the English system of units: with the ambiguity (mostly) having been removed, there's no longer a strong motivation to switch.

[english si]

Metric is a product of the Academic - abstract and unconnected to reality*, but great for calculations
Customary is a product of Industry - practical and worked out for specific purposes**, but the units are masters of one rather than jack of all trades (and varied from place to place as different people had different ways of doing tasks)

*seriously, the key definer being that a meter was 100 trillionths of the distance between the North Pole and the Equator via Paris - totally arrived by abstract calculation and totally arbitrary - deliberately something ridiculous and unimaginable to pretend it's more universal.
**and so the units are the right size for the task, or near enough, making numbers nicer. And you can estimate them easier as they aren't as aloof from reality.

[Scott5114]

I tend to use metric units when possible simply because I can't be arsed to squint at a ruler and determine which is the quarter inch mark and which is the eighth, or remember the arbitrary relationship between cups, pints, quarts and gallons–honestly, I can't remember whether a pint or a quart is bigger. If comparing unit prices, it's usually easier for me to use the metric conversions provided to determine the relative size of the packaging, and if none is provided on one of the possibilities, that one loses the sale for its obstinacy.

[Brandon]

I tend to use metric units when possible simply because I can't be arsed to squint at a ruler and determine which is the quarter inch mark and which is the eighth, or remember the arbitrary relationship between cups, pints, quarts and gallons–honestly, I can't remember whether a pint or a quart is bigger. If comparing unit prices, it's usually easier for me to use the metric conversions provided to determine the relative size of the packaging, and if none is provided on one of the possibilities, that one loses the sale for its obstinacy.

The relationship between cups, pints, quarts, and gallons is not arbitrary.  A cup is 1/2 a pint, a pint is 1/2 a quart, a quart (hence the name) is 1/4 a gallon.  Hence, a cup is 1/4 a quart and 1/16 of a gallon.  All base 4 calculations.  It should also be pretty damn easy to figure out the difference between pints and quarts by looking in the milk aisle.

I find metric to be pretty damned arbitrary with regards to sizes and distances in the real world.  It looks great in theory, but imperial/customary (differences in the liquid ounce) is much better suited, IMHO, to the real world.  Metric is base 10 while imperial is base 4.  Base 4 is usually easier for people to comprehend (think, four main fingers on each hand).

[formulanone]

When I was a kid I remember seeing a "Nashville 100 mi/162 km" sign on I-40 eastbound. That sign is long gone.

There were some on I-24 as well if I can recall.  New administration came in and took them down.  Some say it was too foreign.

I could swear there was one on I-75 southbound, just north of Chattanooga.

[Roadrunner75]

Delaware's Route 1 had kilometer markers and kilometer based exit numbers, when originally constructed in the 1990s.  I remember some kind of sign also noting this when it opened ("Delaware's first metric highway" or something like that).  I think the markers are now in miles, but the exit numbers remain in km.

[algorerhythms]

I tend to use metric units when possible simply because I can't be arsed to squint at a ruler and determine which is the quarter inch mark and which is the eighth, or remember the arbitrary relationship between cups, pints, quarts and gallons–honestly, I can't remember whether a pint or a quart is bigger. If comparing unit prices, it's usually easier for me to use the metric conversions provided to determine the relative size of the packaging, and if none is provided on one of the possibilities, that one loses the sale for its obstinacy.

The relationship between cups, pints, quarts, and gallons is not arbitrary.  A cup is 1/2 a pint, a pint is 1/2 a quart, a quart (hence the name) is 1/4 a gallon.  Hence, a cup is 1/4 a quart and 1/16 of a gallon.  All base 4 calculations.  It should also be pretty damn easy to figure out the difference between pints and quarts by looking in the milk aisle.

I find metric to be pretty damned arbitrary with regards to sizes and distances in the real world.  It looks great in theory, but imperial/customary (differences in the liquid ounce) is much better suited, IMHO, to the real world.  Metric is base 10 while imperial is base 4.  Base 4 is usually easier for people to comprehend (think, four main fingers on each hand).

If imperial were actually base-2 (or base-4, they're effectively equivalent), then there would be less of an issue. But it's only base-2 in volume measurements (except the tablespoon which for some reason is 3 teaspoons instead of 4...) But when you have to memorize that there's 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard, and 5280 feet in a mile (hey, the road sign says the lane ending is 2000 feet away. Quick, what fraction of a mile is that?), it becomes a bit less useful.

[english si]

I don't get why the US give high numbers of feet, rather than using yards, but the context specific units mean that you rarely have to remember the conversions, or at least are only working with 2 units at a time.

[1995hoo]

I don't get why the US give high numbers of feet, rather than using yards, but the context specific units mean that you rarely have to remember the conversions, or at least are only working with 2 units at a time.

About the only time I ever hear anyone using yards is when I watch (or play) golf or football.....or drive in the UK! I find yards alien. Yeah, I know there are three feet in a yard, but then, why not use leagues to avoid large numbers of miles?

[tdindy88]

I could swear there was one on I-75 southbound, just north of Chattanooga.

There was when I passed through there in 2010. It said Chattanooga 25 miles or 40 kms.

[formulanone]

I could swear there was one on I-75 southbound, just north of Chattanooga.

There was when I passed through there in 2010. It said Chattanooga 25 miles or 40 kms.

Ah, there it is.

[Brandon]

I don't get why the US give high numbers of feet, rather than using yards, but the context specific units mean that you rarely have to remember the conversions, or at least are only working with 2 units at a time.

Personally, I'd rather use links, rods, chains, and furlongs instead of feet and inches (or even yards).

There are 100 links to a chain, 10 chains to the furlong, and 8 furlongs to the mile, or 80 chains to the mile.

A rod is 1/4 of a chain or 25 links.

An acre is one chain by one furlong (10 chains).

Using these measures, all land breaks down very easily and evenly.

A chain, by the way, is 66 feet.  When you look at streets when they've been platted, they're typically 66 feet wide, and alleys are 16.5 feet wide.  In other words, a street is one chain wide, and an alley is one rod wide.

Regardless, a mile (which I think should be the basis for measurement on land) breaks down neatly using these measures.

[GaryV]

I think the US never took to the metric system in part because of they way they tried teaching it to us in school decades ago.  Instead of giving us metric rulers and such, they gave us math problems.  How many centimeters is 23 inches?  That's a multiplication problem, not a measurement problem.

Not adopting metric means we have to accommodate to having two standards.  Mechanics have to have two sets of tools to work on parts that are sized in metric or English, sometimes both on one product/device.  And NASA crashed a probe into Mars because someone used the wrong units in a calculation.

Incidentally, back when gas first shot above $1.00 per gallon, many stations had to sell by the liter.  That's because while gas pumps could be set to gallons or liters (so they could be used internationally), they didn't have the capability of going over 99.9 cents.  So we paid 30 or 40 cents per liter until the pumps could be retrofitted.

[hotdogPi]

It could be worse.

256 drams = 16 avoirdupois ounces = 1 avoirdupois pound = 7000 grains
12 troy ounces = 1 troy pound = 5760 grains

192 avoirdupois ounces = 175 troy ounces
144 avoirdupois pounds = 175 troy pounds

[MSU John]

If I'm not mistaken, the entirety of I-19 (from Tucson to Nogales, Arizona) is metric.

[US 41]

If I'm not mistaken, the entirety of I-19 (from Tucson to Nogales, Arizona) is metric.

That is true.

[Avalanchez71]

If I'm not mistaken, the entirety of I-19 (from Tucson to Nogales, Arizona) is metric.

That is true.

Do the Mexicans have miles on the connecting route?  If not then why should we put up kilometers?