The Atlantic Time Zone reimagined

[jwolfer]

I read years ago in the local Jacksonville paper that all of Florida and Georgia at one time were Central Time Zone.

[Pete from Boston]

I read years ago in the local Jacksonville paper that all of Florida and Georgia at one time were Central Time Zone.

1913:

[Alps]

I read years ago in the local Jacksonville paper that all of Florida and Georgia at one time were Central Time Zone.

1913:

Is it, or not, true that railroads would just keep having the time zones changed so that certain cities would be tied to certain other cities, and that list determined where the boundaries lay? This looks very much like that.

[woodpusher]

It was the railroads that got us time zones....I never realized they looked like that.

But, shouldn't it be Eastern Time Zone (Atlantic = Eastern plus an hour)?

67.5 - 82.5 = Eastern....this would put most of Michigan (maybe all to make it simple) in the Central Time Zone; Ohio would be split; most of KY and TN (maybe all to make it simple), while VA, NC, SC would be eastern.  GA would be split as well.
82.5 - 97.5 = Central.  Most of the urban Great Plains would be Central:  Omaha, Kansas City,  ...
97.5 - 112.5 = Mountain. 
112.5 - 127.5 = Pacific.

[Pete from Boston]

I read years ago in the local Jacksonville paper that all of Florida and Georgia at one time were Central Time Zone.

1913:

Is it, or not, true that railroads would just keep having the time zones changed so that certain cities would be tied to certain other cities, and that list determined where the boundaries lay? This looks very much like that.

That's a really interesting question.  I'd be interesting in reading about the profit motives of these companies creating our codified time regime.

They taught us in school that the Gadsden Purchase happened because the railroad runs around the Rockies there.  That area is an unlikely appendage of the Pacific Time Zone in this map, presumably following a railroad corridor, and reaching all the way to... El Paso?  There were apparently adjoining places two hours off.

It would be interesting to overlay it on railroad corridors.  Are there shapefiles out there of railroads in existence 100 years ago?

[The Nature Boy]

Florida and Georgia being in the Central Time Zone here is interesting. Here's a 1914 map of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad:

[vtk]

Switch everyone to UTC. The sun rises when it rises, and sets when it sets; communities can plan their school / work / church schedules accordingly.

[tidecat]

As long as Lexington and Frankfort stay in the Eastern time zone, go ahead and move Cincinnati.

Lexington used to be on Central Time.

I think I've seen old maps showing that, but I don't remember when. There was a reason for it, but again, I don't remember what that reason was.

GE was behind Louisville's move from the Central to Eastern Time Zones.

[dcbjms]

To the OP: I can live with New England being on Atlantic Time, along with Quebec.  For the Ottawa/Gatineau issue, it's relatively simple.  (Well, it is and it isn't - but that's besides the point.)  Within Quebec, Gatineau and area belong to the Outaouais region.  However, as you can tell, there's no clean way to draw the ET/AT border through Quebec if we are doing it on its western side.  Having said that, there's one way to draw the ET/AT border, based on what could be retained on ET in western Quebec.
>One could incorporate a good portion of the Abtibi-Témiscamingue region, along the lines of the current federal riding.  Included here are also the communities of Val-d'Or, Malartic, and Rivière-Héva, since those three communities are part of the same metro area as Rouyn-Noranda.
>From the Outaouais region: Moving downriver, additional areas which could remain on ET are the Pontiac and Les Collines-de-l'Outaouais MRCs in full, plus the City of Gatineau and a small southern part of the La Vallée-de-la-Gatineau MRC.
The rest of Quebec would then be on AT.

[Alps]

Strictly based on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Time_Zone#/media/File:Timezoneswest.PNG

All of New England and the Maritimes are in the proper time zones.
Florida panhandle belongs entirely in Central. Georgia belongs in Central except for Savannah. All of KY, TN, IN, and MI belong in Central. Western Ohio (Toledo and onward) belong in Central. Ontario should be split west of Sudbury.
Given the existence of Fort Worth, Dallas and everything else on I-35 should be in Mountain. Houston stays in Central. Oklahoma should split between Oklahoma City and Tulsa. Kansas should be split between Wichita and KC. NE, SD, and ND should just be entirely in Mountain. Manitoba west of Winnipeg would move to Mountain, along with Saskatchewan (no DST weirdness).
Arizona should be split west of Phoenix so that Yuma and all the border towns are in Pacific. Utah's west is so sparse I wouldn't bother, but the line would go somewhere around Great Salt Lake. All of Idaho, not just the panhandle, would be in Pacific as well. Alberta would shift west into Pacific. Western NWT (beyond Yellowknife) would move to Pacific. Northwest BC and all of YT would move into Alaska Time to join Juneau and the panhandle. The main body of Alaska would actually be on Hawaii Time. Nome, the Aleutians, and... Hawaii... would be in a new time zone.

[Road Hog]

I'd just as soon simplify the time zones in North America by combining the Eastern and Central putting half the country on Eastern time, and combining Mountain and Pacific putting the western half on Mountain time. At the same time doing away with DST. Everyone changes their clocks in November and never has to change them again.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

Continuing with that, Netherlands, Belgium, metropolitan France excluding Corsica and Spain should move from Central Europe to Western Europe, while Belarus should move from Moscow to Eastern Europe. Most of Russia should really advance one hour, as well as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. China should split back into its pre-existing time zones. North Korea recently went back to UTC+8:30, and South Korea should follow suit, this time zone would be a compromise as otherwise the Korean peninsula would be split into two time zones.

Switch everyone to UTC. The sun rises when it rises, and sets when it sets; communities can plan their school / work / church schedules accordingly.

Then communities near the dateline would see the date changing near local noon!

[ixnay]

Is there a reliable website depicting the evolution of time zone boundaries in North America?  Or must we spend innumerable hours in the morgues of newspapers and Rand-McNally?

IIRC 2016 marks the 50th birthday of the federal DST law (before that, DST and its dates of observance were strictly state/local option.  I'd like to know if there's a reliable site for determining state/local DST observance dates over the years too.

As to why such sites could come in handy... For example, I was born in a hospital in Chester, Delaware County, PA in the summer of 1961.  I don't know what the DST laws were in PA, "Delco", or the city of Chester in 1961, but I do know that my birth certificate gives a ST birth time.   I can't assume that is correct, because then as now, some people don't know the difference between ST and DST, including, perhaps, the nun (my mom says it was a nun who made out my BC; it was a Catholic hospital) who calligraphed my BC.  Especially with the local variances of DST observance back then.

Another example:  I've read (in a couple of books) about the battle over James Meredith's admission to the University of MS in *late* September 1962, that there was a two hour time difference between Oxford and DC, suggesting to me that Oxford (or its county, or Mississippi) observed ST while the nation's capital observed DST at that point in 1962.

ixnay

[vtk]

Switch everyone to UTC. The sun rises when it rises, and sets when it sets; communities can plan their school / work / church schedules accordingly.

Then communities near the dateline would see the date changing near local noon!

Or they could continue the date of morning through the rest of the day by using hours greater than 23. For example, 30:00 Tuesday = 6:00 Wednesday – and that's true everywhere, not just in communities near the date line.  (I already occasionally talk about times past midnight this way.)  Also, there would no longer actually be such a thing as a date line.

[ghYHZ]

I'm in the Atlantic Time Zone....and with the change to Standard Time yesterday.....sunset was at 5pm but the drive to work this morning was in daylight again with the sunrise at 6:55am.

[1995hoo]

Funny you bumped this thread. Several New England state governments are apparently investigating the option of changing to Atlantic Standard Time permanently (that is, Atlantic Time with no DST, so they'd be on the same time as the Maritimes during the winter and New York and DC eight months a year). I was reading about it on Saturday. I'm not inclined to dig up the articles right now, but I seem to recall New Hampshire approved it provided Maine and Massachusetts go along, Maine approved it subject to Massachusetts and New Hampshire going along AND approval via a referendum, and Massachusetts is supposed to get a recommendation from a commission this Wednesday. Of course, they'd still have to get USDOT approval as well, and who knows whether that would happen. (There are a number of places around the country that adhere to different time zones than their "legal" zone due to practical considerations–Phenix City, Alabama, is one example where they use Eastern Time because of Columbus being right across the river–but it's kind of hard to envision three whole states doing that sort of thing.)

[Roadgeekteen]

I would not like this because sunday night football would start at 9:30.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

I would not like this because sunday night football would start at 9:30.

It would only affect one team (granted, that's a pretty powerful team and owner), but MNF used to start at 9 Eastern back in the day.

[1995hoo]

I would not like this because sunday night football would start at 9:30.

It would only affect one team (granted, that's a pretty powerful team and owner), but MNF used to start at 9 Eastern back in the day.

No, it'd affect anyone in those states who wanted to watch Sunday Night Football. That is, if the game starts at 8:25 Eastern regardless of where it's played, if you're on Atlantic it would start at 9:25.

The only time a game would actually be played at 9:25 local time would be if the Patriots were at home.

[NWI_Irish96]

My proposal:

1) Start by drawing the lines where they belong:
Atlantic/Eastern at 67.5 West
Eastern/Central at 82.5 West
Central/Mountain at 97.5 West
Mountain/Pacific at 112.5 West

2) For any media market split by those lines, put the entire market in the easternmost time zone if more than 1/3 of the market lives east of the line, otherwise put the entir e market in the westernmost time zone

3) Eliminate DST, or at the very least reduce it from the 3rd weekend in March to the 4th weekend in September.

[hotdogPi]

My proposal:

1) Start by drawing the lines where they belong:
Atlantic/Eastern at 67.5 West
Eastern/Central at 82.5 West
Central/Mountain at 97.5 West
Mountain/Pacific at 112.5 West

2) For any media market split by those lines, put the entire market in the easternmost time zone if more than 1/3 of the market lives east of the line, otherwise put the entire market in the westernmost time zone

3) Eliminate DST, or at the very least reduce it from the 3rd weekend in March to the 4th weekend in September.

1. The 67.5 line would put a VERY small part of Maine into Atlantic, while the rest (likely over 99% of Maine's area) is in Eastern.

2. What about state lines that are nowhere near media markets?

3. DST was fine when we matched what Europe did. When we extended it a few years ago, it became more of a problem. (Side note: one of the radio/clock/CD players in my house still uses the former DST days instead of the current ones.)

[froggie]

I've come to the conclusion that anyone who suggests time zones on the fringe "don't need to change" doesn't live in an area with 4am sunrises in the summer and 4pm sunsets in the winter...

Regarding football games...given the past precedent (NFL and TV networks wanting to synchronize for maximum viewing) suggested by TheHighwayMan394, schedules would be adjusted should regions shift time zones, so it's much less of an issue than the kid and 1995hoo are making it out to be.

Any such night games at Foxborough would probably start at 8 or 8:30 Atlantic time if this were to be.

[NWI_Irish96]

My proposal:

1) Start by drawing the lines where they belong:
Atlantic/Eastern at 67.5 West
Eastern/Central at 82.5 West
Central/Mountain at 97.5 West
Mountain/Pacific at 112.5 West

2) For any media market split by those lines, put the entire market in the easternmost time zone if more than 1/3 of the market lives east of the line, otherwise put the entire market in the westernmost time zone

3) Eliminate DST, or at the very least reduce it from the 3rd weekend in March to the 4th weekend in September.

1. The 67.5 line would put a VERY small part of Maine into Atlantic, while the rest (likely over 99% of Maine's area) is in Eastern.

2. What about state lines that are nowhere near media markets?

3. DST was fine when we matched what Europe did. When we extended it a few years ago, it became more of a problem. (Side note: one of the radio/clock/CD players in my house still uses the former DST days instead of the current ones.)

1. When you apply criteria #2, it puts all of Maine in Eastern.

2. I don't care about state lines.  The longitude lines divide the time zones, with slight deviations as needed to keep entire media markets in the same time zone. 

[jeffandnicole]

I would not like this because sunday night football would start at 9:30.

It would only affect one team (granted, that's a pretty powerful team and owner), but MNF used to start at 9 Eastern back in the day.

Most baseball games used to start at 7:30, with an occasional 8pm start.  Things change...and MNF at 9pm proved to be too late as well.

As mentioned, a time zone change affects everything.  So not only would MNF (And TNF and SNF) start at 9:30, but most likely every show will start an hour later.  The networks won't be too keen on allowing a small fraction of the country to have the shows on an hour earlier, so 'Prime Time' in the Atlantic Time Zone would be 9pm to midnight, not 8pm to 11pm.  And thus, the nightly 11pm news would be midnight news.  Much of this will be too late for people that still have to be at school or work in the morning.

[jp the roadgeek]

The time zone lines suggested and the elimination of DST only makes things worse for the areas actually trying to get to AST.  You would be putting New England and the NYC area in a permanent state of 4 PM sunsets in the winter and 4 AM sunrises in the summer.  I just read my idea from a couple of years ago, and the line that I proposed puts all of the Boston-DC corridor, Montreal, Ottawa, and Quebec City on AST.  The line would run from just west of the Ottawa Metro parallel to ON 416 to the border, then along the St. Lawrence and through Lake Ontario in NY along the western borders of Cayuga, Tompkins and Tioga counties; through PA on the western borders of Tioga, Lycoming, Union, Snyder, Juniata, and Franklin counties, MD on the western border of Washington County, WV on the western border of Berkeley County, and then cut east through VA in the following fashion:

http://www.mappery.com/maps/Virginia-Counties-Map.jpg

VACO regions 1-3 and 6-8 would be included in this area, then the line arcs around in the Atlantic so that Bermuda would be included.  North Carolina is far enough west to stay in Eastern Time, as is Rochester, NY, Pittsburgh, and southwestern VA