I-19 LOSING ITS KILOMETER SIGNS

摘要

A stretch of Interstate 19 in Arizona is losing its kilometer signs. The Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) had previously said that the signs would go back to miles when they needed to be replaced, and that time has come: The Arizona State Transportation Board approved a dollar1.5 million project on 3 March 2009 to replace the 30-year-old signs on the stretch of I-19 from the Mexican border to I-10 in Tucson. Both the kilometer posts and the large signs giving distances in kilometers will be replaced. The signs were originally installed in May 1979. At the time, John Donnelly of the U.S. Metric Board explained that the 107-kilometer-long I-19 was selected for the metric-signage experiment "because it's a relatively isolated stretch near the Mexican border" with no major intersecting roads, just heavy traffic to and from Mexico, which had been metric for years. The only non-metric signs were speed limits and bridge heights. As for speed limits, Carlie Bolmer of ADOT explained, "We wanted to do the whole thing, but the Federal Highway Administration wouldn't let us." They had planned to post 90 km/h speed limit signs, but that's 55.9 mi/h, and the Federal speed limit at the time was 55: "Our legal people felt this could cause us some difficulties." Signs showing the height of underpasses were both metric and non-metric, to avoid potential damage to structures.