Arizona Looking to Dump Metric Signage on I-19

[US 41]

I think the posts and exit numbers should be in standard units just because that is what the United States uses. I don't see mile posts in Mexico on 15D, because Mexico uses the metric system.

Just to prove my point the signs in the US on I-19 aren't in Spanish. They are in English because that is what is spoken in the US. Same for Mexico. They're signs are in Spanish because Spanish is spoken there. An exception to this rule are signs relating directly to tourists. Ex - permit returns. Kilometer posts in the US aren't relating to tourists. They're from a failed metric conversion from years ago. Alto signs at customs is okay because the directly help foreign tourists. (Or stop signs o the Mexican side.)

Careful with that fallacy: The US does not have an official language. It just happens that the large majority of US residents speak English, which makes it seem as though English is the official language.

It reminds me of the joke of the guy who's standing in line at the store behind a woman speaking a foreign language on her cell phone. She ends the call, and the guy says,
"I didn't want to be rude, but really, if you want to speak Spanish, you should go back to Mexico."
She sizes him up, and replies, "Sir, I was speaking Navajo. If you want to speak English, you should go back to England."

However it is illegal to drive a semi or other commercial vehicle in the US if you cannot fluently speak and read english. Mexican truck drivers are arrested all the time for this. English may not be the official language officialy, but it is de facto. However it is legal to drive a car in the US even if you cant spaek and/or read english.

[Scott5114]

The hilarious thing is that this issue really has nothing to do with language or anything else. The choice of kilometers or miles is, in practice, a meaningless distinction. Exit numbers are arbitrarily tied to miles; they could just as well be sequential or measured in smoots. On advance distance signage, "2 km" means "I have a minute or so before I get to that exit" and "1 km" means "I have 30 seconds or so". Exactly the same thing that "1 mile" and "½ mile" mean in that context. Nobody is seriously going to miss their exit for because they thought it was 2000 feet further down the road than it really is; once you see a 1 km sign you start thinking "Oh, my exit is coming up soon" and looking for the ramp.

[jwolfer]

No it is de jure.. Miami is the same.. English is a second language in south Florida. Southern AZ is right on the border with Mexico and it was mexico until the 1850s

It is not de jure nor de facto in some parts. It has been part of the USA longer than Mexico. Mexico was not independent from Spain until 1848
Nothing is wrong with anyone speaking Spanish or conducting business in whatever language they desire. In any frontier there is mix of languages.

There has been a permanent Spanish population in Tucson since 1692 though. The US bought it in the Gadsden Purchase, but there weren't really English speakers there until after 1900, and not en masse until about 1950 when air conditioning became reasonable.

The Spanish speaking population of Tucson that can count themselves as descendants of the pre 1900 Spanish/Mexicans is a tiny proportion of the current Spanish speaking population. And I would make and educated guess that many people living in the Gadsden purchase area spoke a Native American language and not Spanish.

I know descendants of early Spanish settlers in St Augustine, with Spanish last names and everything. But they are  Florida "cracker" . No one has spoken Spanish in nearly 200 years.

[kkt]

It is not de jure nor de facto in some parts. It has been part of the USA longer than Mexico. Mexico was not independent from Spain until 1848

1821.  1848 was the U.S.-Mexico war.

About signage, it's not just a Mexico issue.  It's every other country in the world except the U.K.

[jwolfer]

It is not de jure nor de facto in some parts. It has been part of the USA longer than Mexico. Mexico was not independent from Spain until 1848

1821.  1848 was the U.S.-Mexico war.

About signage, it's not just a Mexico issue.  It's every other country in the world except the U.K.

You are right on the date. My point still stands though

[Fred Defender]

Speaking of coke illegal drugs are metric for the most part.

LOL!

[Neddyfram]

If the highway is famous for being metric, keep it metric.

[SteveG1988]

The simple way of dealing with this is to just put up "Old Exit" signs like PA did.

[MikeTheActuary]

My apologies for bringing back a 10+ year-old thread, but the forum's search tool was uncooperative and Google's search suggests this might be the most appropriate thread for this.

The topic of de-metric-ifying I-19 is the focus of today's A-Hed column in the Wall Street Journal (gift link): https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/america-first-trump-metric-highway-tucker-carlson-827758e6?st=o3sz8V&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

"When you're driving in the United States, it should be unmistakably American—not modeled after foreign systems," said Nate Sizemore, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Transportation. I-19 will be reviewed as part of the agency's "broader efforts to restore American standards and ensure our infrastructure is easy to understand and navigate."

A change would be welcome news to some conservative critics.

"They're not using gallons and miles in North Korea. They're using the metric system—so are Iran and China. I can't imagine why we'd want any of that in our country," Tucker Carlson said in an interview.

Carlson, a former Fox News host, said having a road that connects the U.S. and Mexico—it technically stops roughly 90 meters (about 300 feet) from the border—in kilometers is a national security risk.

"Everyone is talking about missile defense, the first line of defense is to confuse the enemy on the road," he said.

The White House didn't respond to a request for comment. Garin Groff, a spokesman for the Arizona Department of Transportation, said the road signs remained in the metric system because business owners opposed a state effort to change them in 2009.

The sentiment remains. Locals and visitors across the ideological spectrum say the government should leave their kilometers alone.

I'm not certain it's possible to directly address the arguments raised in the article for shifting I-19 to American customary units without opening a political can of worms...so I'm going to leave it as "it sounds like politicians may be pushing bureaucrats to think about this again".

[Max Rockatansky]

That is one hell of a leap in logic to claim that kilometers represent a national security risk.

[Rothman]

That is one hell of a leap in logic to claim that kilometers represent a national security risk.

I laughed out loud at Carlson's remark and then it hit me that his audience takes him seriously.

[english si]

That is one hell of a leap in logic to claim that kilometers represent a national security risk.

Maybe in Britain, in the Napoleonic Wars, the use of French Imperial measurements were something that national security would be worried about, but the use of such anti-human measurements were not inherently a national security risk.

[elsmere241]

That is one hell of a leap in logic to claim that kilometers represent a national security risk.

It does remind me of some of the rhetoric I've heard against SI/metric over the years.  Just not that particular argument.

My church is just coming around to using metric to describe things in English-language publications (and conferences).  Something about being America-centered.  In a way, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a past effort to use the "American" system outside North America, something like a "priesthood measurement system".  (It's what we tried to do with Boy Scouts for a while there.)

[1995hoo]

That is one hell of a leap in logic to claim that kilometers represent a national security risk.

Well, after all, adopting metric measurements would lead to the USA having "foreign rulers."

[kphoger]

"When you're driving in the United States, it should be unmistakably American—not modeled after foreign systems."

On the one hand, it would be very strange to keep driving south into Mexico and find signage in miles instead of kilometers along Carr. Fed. 15.

But on the other hand, US Customary units are modeled after a foreign system.  So...

[1995hoo]

....

But on the other hand, US Customary units are modeled after a foreign system.  So...

To some extent, they're also legally defined in terms of the "foreign system" Carlson decries. The legal definition of an inch, for example, is 25.4 mm.

[LilianaUwU]

That is one hell of a leap in logic to claim that kilometers represent a national security risk.

It tracks considering it comes from Tucker Carlson.

[kphoger]

It tracks considering it comes from Tucker Carlson.

You're a liberal.  We get it.  Jeez.

[LilianaUwU]

It tracks considering it comes from Tucker Carlson.

You're a liberal.  We get it.  Jeez.

I'm even worse. I'm a full on leftist.

With that said, for the non-political aspects of this, it would probably be better for consistency's sake to have I-19 in imperial, but I feel like locals would probably object to it since it's been in metric for so long.

[Max Rockatansky]

They traditionally have objected to calls for conversion.  The article actually hit on the common arguments they have always brought up. 

[GaryV]

However it is illegal to drive a semi or other commercial vehicle in the US if you cannot fluently speak and read english. Mexican truck drivers are arrested all the time for this.

As I perused 11 year old posts to get down to the new stuff, I saw this. Two days after an executive order was issued that requires commercial drivers to be able to speak English. Why the EO if it was already illegal? Or was it made legal sometime in the past decade?

[vdeane]

My apologies for bringing back a 10+ year-old thread, but the forum's search tool was uncooperative and Google's search suggests this might be the most appropriate thread for this.

The topic of de-metric-ifying I-19 is the focus of today's A-Hed column in the Wall Street Journal (gift link): https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/america-first-trump-metric-highway-tucker-carlson-827758e6?st=o3sz8V&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

"When you're driving in the United States, it should be unmistakably American—not modeled after foreign systems," said Nate Sizemore, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Transportation. I-19 will be reviewed as part of the agency's "broader efforts to restore American standards and ensure our infrastructure is easy to understand and navigate."

A change would be welcome news to some conservative critics.

"They're not using gallons and miles in North Korea. They're using the metric system—so are Iran and China. I can't imagine why we'd want any of that in our country," Tucker Carlson said in an interview.

Carlson, a former Fox News host, said having a road that connects the U.S. and Mexico—it technically stops roughly 90 meters (about 300 feet) from the border—in kilometers is a national security risk.

"Everyone is talking about missile defense, the first line of defense is to confuse the enemy on the road," he said.

The White House didn't respond to a request for comment. Garin Groff, a spokesman for the Arizona Department of Transportation, said the road signs remained in the metric system because business owners opposed a state effort to change them in 2009.

The sentiment remains. Locals and visitors across the ideological spectrum say the government should leave their kilometers alone.

I'm not certain it's possible to directly address the arguments raised in the article for shifting I-19 to American customary units without opening a political can of worms...so I'm going to leave it as "it sounds like politicians may be pushing bureaucrats to think about this again".

...

Umm, WTF?

Is this satire?

They're serious?

...

Wow.

...

Are they going after DE 1 next?  Or Puerto Rico?  Or the metric speed limits on the Canadian border?  Or the French signs on I-87?

(Also, I would say that this is the time it's appropriate to bump an old thread)

Seriously, this sounds like something from The Colbert Report.

[Max Rockatansky]

^^^

Or any of the numerous random metric signs found here on State Highways in California from the 1970s?

[kwellada]

It tracks considering it comes from Tucker Carlson.

You're a liberal.  We get it.  Jeez.

Like the other respondent, I lean way left of what passes for liberal in the US. Carlson's career exists to do one thing: fearmonger and keep a certain portion of the voter base irrationally angry at all times. It's a schtick that easily seen through. Any self respecting human should just disregard him as the guy who got mad about sexy M&M's

[kphoger]

It tracks considering it comes from Tucker Carlson.

You're a liberal.  We get it.  Jeez.

Like the other respondent, I lean way left of what passes for liberal in the US. Carlson's career exists to do one thing: fearmonger and keep a certain portion of the voter base irrationally angry at all times. It's a schtick that easily seen through. Any self respecting human should just disregard him as the guy who got mad about sexy M&M's

My point is that none of it needed to be said.  Let's keep the discussion roads-related, rather than signaling our own personal political alignments.  What each of us thinks of Tucker Carlson is irrelevant.