New York State won't give an inch in metric battle

0 Comments | Insight on the News, April 29, 2002 | by John Elvin

The federal government and many of the states have been trying for years to get the public on the metric bandwagon. The effort hasn't received a warm welcome and, more recently, the feds and many states have backed off requirements that businesses use the metric system when doing government contract work.

That's a relief to whole industries such as road and bridge builders, whose livelihoods depend on government contracts. The problem for them is that their suppliers don't use the metric system, so they have been forced into a situation that doesn't seem to hold up under cost-benefit analysis. When the government puts a job up for bid, the specifications are issued in metric. To determine the cost of needed supplies, bidders have to take the government plans and convert them to traditional weights and measures to get prices from their suppliers. Then they have to convert the resulting figures back into metric to place a bid.

One of the states that has held to a hard line on metric is New York. Rather than back off due to the contractor-supplier problem, New York's Department of Transportation (DOT) went the other way and ordered material suppliers to convert to metric. What this means is that manufacturers of goods such as cement and asphalt must change their plants over to the metric system if they want to get in on state contracts. Think about all the gauges and other monitoring and measuring devices involved in a manufacturing process and you'll see that this is no small task -- and a mighty expensive one to boot.

In a Rust Belt state where the construction industry is one of the few fields that has jobs to offer, it seems very strange to some observers that the state is being so heavy-handed. Apparently state officials figure the suppliers have no choice but to go along.

Of course, the manufacturers do indeed have a choice. In a survey reported by the Association of General Contractors, a statewide trade organization, some 118 manufacturing plants appear to be ignoring the state's demand, meaning they won't be supplying goods for the construction year ahead. Will the state wake up and realize that being on the forefront of metric conversion may have serious economic consequences?

Probably not, because its drive to force metric on the business community has gone too far. "Too many conversions have already been made, too much capital has been expended, too many specs have been written and too many contracts have been designed in metric to walk away now" according to an insider familiar with the state DOT's thinking.