I got this in my inbox just now. Why don’t we just go metric? It seems ridiculous to have to maintain two sets of measurement standards, doesn’t it?……..Dan
Public Comment on Retiring the U.S. Survey Foot
The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Office of Weights and Measures and NOAA’s National Geodetic Survey (NGS) have co-issued a Federal Register notice (FRN) to retire the U.S. Survey Foot after 2022. We are soliciting public comment to ensure that this change is made in an orderly fashion with minimal disruption.
Important Dates:
- October 17, 2019: First FRN published inviting public comment on deprecation of the U.S. survey foot after 2022.
- December 2, 2019: Comment period deadline. Submit all comments electronically by this date.
- June 30, 2020: Final Rule: A second FRN formally announcing the change will be published before this date and will describe the details and the change process.
- December 31, 2022: The U.S. survey foot will be deemed obsolete and superseded by the foot (formerly known as the international foot) equal to 0.3048 meter exactly for all applications.
Submitting Comments:
NIST and NOAA are managing the submission and posting of public comments online. Use the “Submit a Formal Comment” link near the top right of the Federal Register webpage. You can also search for the FRN here.
Background:
The definition of the foot was updated in 1959 in the United States, but a previous definition of the foot is still in use and has caused confusion over time. The legally defined “international foot” and the older “U.S. survey foot” differ by only 0.01 foot per mile.
However, having both definitions in use often has resulted in confusion in surveying and mapping where computing accurate coordinates over large distances is commonly required. Retiring the U.S. survey foot will eliminate this confusion, and after 2022 the international foot will simply be called the foot. Read more on the NIST website.
The modernization of the National Spatial Reference System (NSRS) in 2022 is the perfect time to move the United States toward a single, uniform definition of the foot. Both NOAA and NIST have decided to deprecate the U.S. foot through two co-issued Federal Register notices, and by conducting public outreach.
Learn More:
- Register for our December 12, 2019, webinar titled “Putting the Best ‘Foot’ Forward: Ending the Era of the U.S. Survey Foot.”
- Read the story “A Tale of Two Feet” from the National Ocean Service.
- Watch a short video on this topic, titled “Two Right Feet? U.S. Survey Feet vs. International Survey Feet.”
David says
The whole exercise looks like a waste of time to me. U.S. cars have had km markings on their odometers for over two generations.
sinclair says
It actually depends on the car. My import (2010) has both miles and km on the speedo, but my domestic (2014) only has miles.
Tom Parkinson says
Well, my converter program indicates that you will lose 0.01584 feet per mile. Implications on this could impact your flight mile bonus points………
I just hope they don’t mess with the Rods, Furlongs and Chains for measuring as well…..
[Yes – this is a pun]
Steve~W8SFC says
Since before the Industrial Revolution the US has based everything on standard measures derived from the English standards. Inches, feet, yards, and others came about as the civilized world evolved, with the exception of specialized measures such as furlongs, rods and chains which actually originated in the ancient world of Greco-Roman world. Then we can explore cubits, stadia, and others that came before that. In reality this all boils down to how we and our minds relate to the physical world, so all that really matters is we have a common reference in order to understand how far it is from point A to point B…
The only reason we didn’t all become metric measurers I’ve ever been able to discern is, “because… ‘Merica!”. To me, it is important to have standards, however, the way I see it none of us is born with standard measures programmed into our heads, so as far as I can tell this all boils down to resistance to change. I am not sure if this effort is a cleanup or an upgrade, or simply hanging on to our home brewed favorite reference. Perhaps we should blame the British for this mish mash of measurements, after all, they even have a third standard measure for tools called the Whitworth standard, which rears it’s ugly head whenever you have to work on a UK produced motorcycle or car. Anyone who has tangled with that beast knows that a Whitworth 7/8 inch bolt can’t be worked on using standard inch sized wrenches, because of the clear superiority of fine British engineering, if you hear them explain it. There is a slight discrepancy between the standard inch and Whitworth’s measures upon which 19th century Britain was built.
All I know is this is an argument that has roots in the antiquity of humankind. How long is an inch, three barley corns, one 12th of a foot, a 36th of a yard, 0.0254 meters??? It all depends on your relational frame of reference.
All I am asking is to not be hectored into converting acres into hectares. That covers too much ground for my feeble mind. %^)
73!