Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 26, 1994                   TAG: 9401260173
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

U.S. ROADS MIGHT GO METRIC

Seventeen years after the public quashed the idea, the Federal Highway Administration is again considering whether to put kilometers on road signs - and this time the metric units could replace those familiar miles.

"We're not trying to ram this down anyone's throats," said Rudolph Umbs, an administrator with the Federal Highway Administration. "We're just seeking comments to see what people are thinking."

Four options are under consideration:

Gradually replace miles with kilometers on road signs over the next seven years.

Replace miles with kilometers in one year, and couple the conversion with a massive metric education program.

Give states until Sept. 30, 1996, to erect signs using both miles and kilometers.

Leave the road signs alone.

In 1977, at the urging of the federal government, a few states added kilometers to road signs, but the effort was quickly abandoned in the face of public opposition.

Now, as the federal government and the private sector move to conduct more of their business in metric units, the Federal Highway Administration is considering doing the same.

In 1988, Congress passed a law requiring federal agencies to begin using metric units whenever practical by Sept. 30, 1992. The act was designed to make the United States more competitive in trade.

"We took this as an indication for us to move forward or to at least see how the public feels. We understand that we all grew up with English, but the rest of the world is metric," said Umbs, citing Burma and Liberia as the only other exceptions.

In February, the Federal Trade Commission will begin requiring consumer package labels to list metric measurements along with the traditional inches, feet, pounds and gallons. Liquor and automobile companies have long used liters and kilometers.

But judging from the hundreds of letters on file at the Federal Highway Administration, public attitudes haven't changed much since 1977.

"It's a ding-dong idea," said Jerome J. Hoeppner, a retired chemist and member of the Grand Forks, N.D., City Council. "Somebody my age will never be able to get used to that."

But others who wrote in, including transportation officials from Minnesota, West Virginia, South Carolina and Arkansas, said going metric is inevitable.