Once the promise of America's metric future, Interstate 19 south of Tucson, Arizona, is now a relic of a lost cause. The highway boasts of 60 miles --- correction, 100 kilometers --- of metric road signage installed in the early 1980s when the country was considering a switchover. Now, the state of Arizona wants to tear down the signs and replace them with mile markers, at a cost of $1.5 million, using its share of stimulus funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Is this what passes for infrastructure improvement these days?

Repairing bridges, repaving battered roadways, and kick-starting highway expansion projects may have been more of what Congress and Administration officials had in mind when they doled out billions of dollars to states for economic recovery. Replacing signs hardly seems as urgent or economically stimulating ... even if the signs speak a somewhat foreign numerical language.

As frivolous as the million-dollar sign replacement effort appears, civic groups who are fighting to keep the metric signage have chosen an odd angle of attack. They see the kilometer markers as a piece of history to be preserved.

"These signs that were installed some 30 years ago contribute to the history of the area when conversion to the metric system was being considered," wrote Stan Riddle, according to the Arizona Daily Star. He added that they are a "unique point of conversation with both friends and visitors."

Preserving local cultural artifcats is a noble cause, but highway signs? It's not as if the "Almost-Gone-Metric" period of U.S. history is a proud era to be commemorated. The effort to conform to the rest of the world's weights and measures was an ill-advised one anyway, mired in decimal points and oddities like 33 centiliter beer bottles.      

Historic preservation aside, there are other legitimate reasons to question the signage switch. Business owners don't want to bear the costs associated with a change of exit numbers and directions, which they say force them to redo marketing materials.

And then there's the confusion. Trips that used to take 50 kilometers now will only take 30 miles, meaning people might fly by their intended exit. Speed limits won't change -- they've stayed marked in miles per hour all along. But exit numbers will reflect the new numerology, so drivers won't even know which exit is theirs to begin with, not to mention whether they've made good time. 

The Green Valley Community Coordinating Council, headed by Riddle, wrote to Governor Jan Brewer last month urging her to intervene and scrap the project. But that seems unlikely at this juncture. State transportation officials say that even before the stimulus bill passed, the highway signs were targeted for replacement due to their age. 

But that doesn't make it any less dumb of a way to spend stimulus monies. No doubt the kilometer markers are confusing to some, but the stretch of highway which runs north from the Mexican border to Tucson is as logical place as any to have the mixed signage.

Then again, one smart aspect of a switch back to mile markers will be fewer signs altogether. There's one mile for every 1.6 kilometers --- so on the sixty mile stretch... well, you can do the math.

Changing out the exit numbers, now that's a trickier proposition. These projects have always seemed to us to be a boondoggle for local sign manufacturers and highway crews. They don't really make remembering the exit number or finding the ramp any easier. But they do present an artificial need for new signs before normal wear and tear merits a replacement. As it is, the new signs targeted for Tucson will carry both old and new exit numbers for a while, as drivers adjust.

Who wants to bet that in a few years, those dual-numbered signs will be called "confusing," and an entirely new set of signs will be called for? Maybe by then, the U.S. will be back on the metric bandwagon, and we can start the cycle all over again, one mile at a time.

(image from U.S. Metric Association)

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