Metrication

[Brandon]

What are things where Canada still uses imperial? Those things should be converted to metric there, and US should also fully metricate.

I was in Quebec City in 2019, and only two things used the US measurement system: picture frame sizes (which were labeled in inches) and "355 mL" cans where the number was clearly chosen because it was 12 fl oz.

I can't speak for English-speaking Canada.

https://www.loblaws.ca/print-flyer?navid=flyout-L2-Flyer
A sales flyer for a big grocery chain. Prices for things sold by weight are in $/lb, with $/kg in small print.  Seen that in Montreal as well.

A lot of height clearance signage on private property is in feet and inches - new signs, not holdovers.  Advertising signage varies; some in km, some in miles.  BC Ferries uses a lot of Imperial.  They quote how close you need to be to the vehicle in front of you in inches first, then cm.  Even their vertical clearances are in Imperial.  The railroads are almost exclusively Imperial (CN & CPR).

[bulldog1979]

A lot of construction in Canada is still conducted in customary units. Mike Holmes' various shows produced for HGTV Canada in Canada (he's from the Toronto area) were rebroadcast on HGTV in the US without changes. Once they had to subtitle a temperature measurement when talking about a geothermal heat pump because the on-air dialogue was in °C not °F. All other measurements in dialogue were in customary units.

[MikeTheActuary]

What are things where Canada still uses imperial? Those things should be converted to metric there, and US should also fully metricate.

On a primarily Canadian distribution list at work, yesterday there was a birth announcement from one of my coworkers, where the announcement featured the baby's weight in pounds and ounces.

[Poiponen13]

Canada changed every road sign at once on Labour Day in 1977. Can US do it too?

[kalvado]

Canada changed every road sign at once on Labour Day in 1977. Can US do it too?

Yes, but it will take 10+ years

[GaryV]

Canada changed every road sign at once on Labour Day in 1977. Can US do it too?

Citation needed.

To me it seems highly unlikely that they could muster enough workers to get everything changed in one day. Let alone the fact that it would be a holiday, and workers would need to be paid overtime, and road travel would be higher than normal.

[1995hoo]

Poiponen is partly right. Canada changed every speed limit sign over Labour Day weekend in 1977. I cannot imagine that possibly being practical in the United States because we have way more signs than Canada does. I have no idea what the number is, but I would not be surprised if it were tens of thousands more.

[kalvado]

Poiponen is partly right. Canada changed every speed limit sign over Labour Day weekend in 1977. I cannot imagine that possibly being practical in the United States because we have way more signs than Canada does. I have no idea what the number is, but I would not be surprised if it were tens of thousands more.

Question is also what "every" means. Within urban-ish are that is basically city crews working a full day at most. Long haul highways should be pretty doable as well.
Were there any signs on back rural roads? I can envision just removing some in advance and letting defaults to take over

[kkt]

Poiponen is partly right. Canada changed every speed limit sign over Labour Day weekend in 1977. I cannot imagine that possibly being practical in the United States because we have way more signs than Canada does. I have no idea what the number is, but I would not be surprised if it were tens of thousands more.

But we have more people than Canada does too.  Canada had all the signs manufactured and delivered next to where they would be installed, so in most cases it was just a matter of taking the old one down and putting the new one up.

I expect DOTs could hire temporary workers too.

[kalvado]

Poiponen is partly right. Canada changed every speed limit sign over Labour Day weekend in 1977. I cannot imagine that possibly being practical in the United States because we have way more signs than Canada does. I have no idea what the number is, but I would not be surprised if it were tens of thousands more.

But we have more people than Canada does too.  Canada had all the signs manufactured and delivered next to where they would be installed, so in most cases it was just a matter of taking the old one down and putting the new one up.

I expect DOTs could hire temporary workers too.

Long, long ago,  before Covid and under the rule of Governor Cuomo the Second, NY Thruway was told to place some tourism signs ASAP. It was so urgent I saw crews doing that on Saturday.
The cost of the endavour - $8M for 500 signs, or $16K/sign. Granted, those were large signs, similar to typical BGS. But $1000 per speed limit sign seems to be on the optimistic side for the state of NY. There are, by some estimates, between 2 and 10 million speed limit signs in US.
So we're talking roughly between 3 and 15% of $68.9 billion for the Federal-aid Highway program budget proposed for 2023.  Likely more if done at once on a holiday. 

[kkt]

Might be able to get them for less by ordering in large quantity.

[jeffandnicole]

Canada changed every road sign at once on Labour Day in 1977. Can US do it too?

NJ Turnpike Authority can do it on the Turnpike in 0.1 seconds. 

[vdeane]

Poiponen is partly right. Canada changed every speed limit sign over Labour Day weekend in 1977. I cannot imagine that possibly being practical in the United States because we have way more signs than Canada does. I have no idea what the number is, but I would not be surprised if it were tens of thousands more.

But we have more people than Canada does too.  Canada had all the signs manufactured and delivered next to where they would be installed, so in most cases it was just a matter of taking the old one down and putting the new one up.

I expect DOTs could hire temporary workers too.

Long, long ago,  before Covid and under the rule of Governor Cuomo the Second, NY Thruway was told to place some tourism signs ASAP. It was so urgent I saw crews doing that on Saturday.
The cost of the endavour - $8M for 500 signs, or $16K/sign. Granted, those were large signs, similar to typical BGS. But $1000 per speed limit sign seems to be on the optimistic side for the state of NY. There are, by some estimates, between 2 and 10 million speed limit signs in US.
So we're talking roughly between 3 and 15% of $68.9 billion for the Federal-aid Highway program budget proposed for 2023.  Likely more if done at once on a holiday. 

I mean, there's a difference between something planned in advance and the governor saying "here's a neat idea I just had, get the signs out next week" (which is basically what happened with the Cuomo signs).  Canada presumably could design, manufacture, and pre-stage the signs normally, as opposed to rushing every step of the process.

[J N Winkler]

When Kansas raised speed limits following repeal of the NMSL, all of the speed limit signs on the Interstates were patched with the new limits within a few hours of their going into effect at midnight.  That represented about 8.7% of the state highway system (capped at 10,000 miles).  The other ~90% took a few months, largely because speed zoning assessments needed to be performed first.

Keep in mind that metrication is a more ambitious task since distances and unit expressions (where used) also need to be updated, and more agencies are involved since any change in units system also has to cover local roads.

[MikeTheActuary]

Canada changed every road sign at once on Labour Day in 1977. Can US do it too?

NJ Turnpike Authority can do it on the Turnpike in 0.1 seconds. 

....if there were a speed limit reduction on much of the NJT.

[Poiponen13]

Poiponen is partly right. Canada changed every speed limit sign over Labour Day weekend in 1977. I cannot imagine that possibly being practical in the United States because we have way more signs than Canada does. I have no idea what the number is, but I would not be surprised if it were tens of thousands more.

But we have more people than Canada does too.  Canada had all the signs manufactured and delivered next to where they would be installed, so in most cases it was just a matter of taking the old one down and putting the new one up.

I expect DOTs could hire temporary workers too.

Maybe then the metrication of road signs would be done in phases, from east to west.

[kalvado]

Poiponen is partly right. Canada changed every speed limit sign over Labour Day weekend in 1977. I cannot imagine that possibly being practical in the United States because we have way more signs than Canada does. I have no idea what the number is, but I would not be surprised if it were tens of thousands more.

But we have more people than Canada does too.  Canada had all the signs manufactured and delivered next to where they would be installed, so in most cases it was just a matter of taking the old one down and putting the new one up.

I expect DOTs could hire temporary workers too.

Maybe then the metrication of road signs would be done in phases, from east to west.

1. should it be done?
2. what E-W progression wins you?

[hotdogPi]

2. what E-W progression wins you?

No number duplication with exit number replacements.

[kkt]

Poiponen is partly right. Canada changed every speed limit sign over Labour Day weekend in 1977. I cannot imagine that possibly being practical in the United States because we have way more signs than Canada does. I have no idea what the number is, but I would not be surprised if it were tens of thousands more.

But we have more people than Canada does too.  Canada had all the signs manufactured and delivered next to where they would be installed, so in most cases it was just a matter of taking the old one down and putting the new one up.

I expect DOTs could hire temporary workers too.

Maybe then the metrication of road signs would be done in phases, from east to west.

What?  It should be perfectly possible to do at least all the speed limit signs in a weekend.  Make the signs and position them ahead of time, leave the MPH signs by the side of the road and pick them up later. 
"If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly"

[1995hoo]

Would it really be necessary to make new signs if in fact all the signs were to be replaced over a single weekend? Would it not be possible to have stick-on labels with the new metric speed limits to cover over the old numbers?

[mgk920]

I also vividlyremember the individual states hopping right to it when the NMSL was repealed and speed limit setting authority was returned to them.  That told me that that the arguments about 'the seriously long time needed to change all of the signs' were all nothing more than red herrings.

Mike

[TXtoNJ]

I also vividlyremember the individual states hopping right to it when the NMSL was repealed and speed limit setting authority was returned to them.  That told me that that the arguments about 'the seriously long time needed to change all of the signs' were all nothing more than red herrings.

Mike

That's my biggest issue with the metric opponents. Almost all of their arguments are disingenuous in some way.

[1995hoo]

I also vividlyremember the individual states hopping right to it when the NMSL was repealed and speed limit setting authority was returned to them.  That told me that that the arguments about 'the seriously long time needed to change all of the signs' were all nothing more than red herrings.

Mike

I do see one very significant difference between that scenario and a metric conversion. In the NMSL scenario, most states had to change signs only on a relatively small subset of roads, usually Interstates, Interstate look-alikes, and sometimes some multilane divided highways. They didn't change all the urban arterials, residential neighborhood streets, etc. A conversion to metric would require changing every sign on every street that has one. The residential streets are probably the prime example of where they'd seek to deputize local residents for assistance, of course.

[Poiponen13]

I also vividlyremember the individual states hopping right to it when the NMSL was repealed and speed limit setting authority was returned to them.  That told me that that the arguments about 'the seriously long time needed to change all of the signs' were all nothing more than red herrings.

Mike

I do see one very significant difference between that scenario and a metric conversion. In the NMSL scenario, most states had to change signs only on a relatively small subset of roads, usually Interstates, Interstate look-alikes, and sometimes some multilane divided highways. They didn't change all the urban arterials, residential neighborhood streets, etc. A conversion to metric would require changing every sign on every street that has one. The residential streets are probably the prime example of where they'd seek to deputize local residents for assistance, of course.

Australia also managed to do that.

[kalvado]

I also vividlyremember the individual states hopping right to it when the NMSL was repealed and speed limit setting authority was returned to them.  That told me that that the arguments about 'the seriously long time needed to change all of the signs' were all nothing more than red herrings.

Mike

That's my biggest issue with the metric opponents. Almost all of their arguments are disingenuous in some way.

The primary argument against metrication in US is "we don't want that!"
Everything else is just supporting the primary argument.