Who does n’t like a math pop quiz when driving down to the Mexican border ? If you rick onto Interstate 19 , which runs 63 miles ( 101 kilometers ) from Tucson , Arizona , down to Mexico , the road signs short transfer to metrical units . Interstate 19 is a souvenir from a more optimistic geological era , when we believe all of the U.S. could and would convert to the metrical system .
The expectant metrical conversion obviously never bump , and it ’s now I-19 that stands out as anomaly . This is the only reach of continuous main road in the U.S. where road signs , markers , and exit numbers are all count off in kilometre .
That made sense in 1980 , when I-19 ’s signs first went up and when U.S. was near the efflorescence of its flirtation with the metric scheme . Five years earlier , President Ford had sign the Metric Conversion Act , declaring the metrical system “ the preferred scheme of weightiness and measures for United States craft and commerce ” and establishing United States Metric Board to guide the conversion . Schoolchildren dutifully learned their kilograms and centimeters .
But the Metric Conversion Act was only voluntary , and there was far too much inactiveness to alter every single recording label in the country voluntarily . Reagan disbanded the Metric Board in 1982 . rather of lead the commission into brave new metric organisation , Arizona ’s main road is a reminder of a fail experimentation .
To get a perceptiveness of how difficult it was to switch unit , just take the struggle to switch I-19 back to mil . Arizona iscurrently trying again , after a fail effort in 2010 . Along I-19 , 400 route signs would need to be replace , which is no inconsiderable expense . And then there ’s hotel and eating house that advertise their exit numbers ( based on kilometer , think ) , who have vociferously play off the substitution back to mile .
That ’s just for a exclusive 63 - sea mile stretchiness of highway — suppose that times 1,000 for the intact interstate highway organization , metre a bajillion for everything in the entire country . No wonder attempts to upend the unit status quo in the U.S. have betray . [ AP , New York Times ]
Top double : AP Photo / Astrid Galvan
CarshighwaysInfrastructuretransportation
Daily Newsletter
Get the good tech , science , and culture news in your inbox daily .
News from the future , delivered to your present tense .
You May Also Like
