Saturday 21 September 2013

Signs of a fightback against creeping metrication

Our route to the Black Country Boating Festival took us past Salford Junction at Gravelly Hill (aka Spaghetti Junction). Here the signpost has had the original (?) metric distances covered over with the far more sensible mileages. The (new) number covers over the old number and the "k" of "km".

(Even motorway distances are always in miles; canals have been around a lot longer than motorways.)

Whose crazy idea was it to mark the distances in kilometres in the first place? Was it the same person who had the distances on the many towpath signs in the Birmingham area given in metres? I find these signs difficult to read as they appear, on first glance, to be a jumble of letters and numbers. They have little clarity. (I should provide a photo of one here but I seem not to have taken one.)

Here is another fingerpost sign, this time with the distances in miles with no need for amendment.

Can you see the moon?

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