What, if anything, should be done about Daylight Saving Time?

[abefroman329]

Adjust both the start and end dates to match those currently used in Europe. Failing that, just go to permanent standard time.

Why? Why should we follow Europe?

It would just be a reversal of the 2007 DST extension; it has nothing to do with Europe itself.

DST in the US didn't jibe with Europe prior to 2007, either.

[MikeTheActuary]

Why are NV, AZ, KS, MN, and NC split? Also, the Toledo area makes no sense.

The map was prepared via algorithm:  for each TV market, time zone is assigned based on maximizing the number of days where certain key points in time are "correct" in terms of being light or dark.   States are split because they are split across different TV markets.  The weirdness for Toledo and Detroit are the result of their being on the line.  And some of the blank counties are the result of my having relied on Excel's mapping function which leaves much to be desired.

When I ran the algorithm using the assumption that time zones be whole-hour offsets from UTC, I got this:


...which is arguably more aesthetically pleasing, but runs into the issue of splitting California and splitting the Northeast Corridor.

In either map you could move the lines, but you start getting into the issue of having more hours that are "wrong", to the point that if you retain anything resembling the current time zones as whole-hour offsets from UTC... the change to/from DST starts to make sense (in terms of optimizing "rightness") annoying though it may be.

[Eth]

Adjust both the start and end dates to match those currently used in Europe. Failing that, just go to permanent standard time.

Why? Why should we follow Europe?

It would just be a reversal of the 2007 DST extension; it has nothing to do with Europe itself.

DST in the US didn't jibe with Europe prior to 2007, either.

Really, my rationale is simply "DST lasts longer than it should", so if I'm going to trim a few weeks off of it, I may as well align it for the sake of convenience. (I also work with people outside North America on a daily basis as part of my job, so this would make explaining any time changes that do occur a bit easier.)

[renegade]

Why are NV, AZ, KS, MN, and NC split? Also, the Toledo area makes no sense.

And the Detroit area is a separate island. 

[mgk920]

I'd go to worldwide UTC ('Zulu') and adjust our schedules accordingly, so instead of it being 13:52 CDT ('UTC-5') as I post this, it would be 1852Z - and nothing else.



Mike

[Buck87]

My hometown would be in 2 different time zones on this map

[english si]

It would just be a reversal of the 2007 DST extension; it has nothing to do with Europe itself.

And the only European states that haven't yet (the operative word in most cases) got a fleshed out proposal to abolish DST that have it are: Albania, Andorra, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Norway, San Marino, Serbia, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom and the mighty Vatican City.

In other words, you wouldn't be copying Europe because most of Europe wouldn't be changing then...

Running standard time year-round pretty much guarantees that we increase from 4 to 5 time zones in the Continental US.

So does permanent DST (assuming, in both cases, that one Pacific Time state drops DST/stays on PST, rather than moving to year round PDT/MST*). That, say, Florida is on EDT year-round makes it at least de facto AST*.

*I'd imagine these names would shift too, but kept current names for ease of reference.

[jp the roadgeek]

Why are NV, AZ, KS, MN, and NC split? Also, the Toledo area makes no sense.

The map was prepared via algorithm:  for each TV market, time zone is assigned based on maximizing the number of days where certain key points in time are "correct" in terms of being light or dark.   States are split because they are split across different TV markets.  The weirdness for Toledo and Detroit are the result of their being on the line.  And some of the blank counties are the result of my having relied on Excel's mapping function which leaves much to be desired.

When I ran the algorithm using the assumption that time zones be whole-hour offsets from UTC, I got this:


...which is arguably more aesthetically pleasing, but runs into the issue of splitting California and splitting the Northeast Corridor.

In either map you could move the lines, but you start getting into the issue of having more hours that are "wrong", to the point that if you retain anything resembling the current time zones as whole-hour offsets from UTC... the change to/from DST starts to make sense (in terms of optimizing "rightness") annoying though it may be.

My map is pretty similar to the 2nd map, except it has 4 time zones instead of 5.  I also used TV markets in determining time zones, which accounts for a couple of counties in WV and NC being on UTC -4 (part of the DC and Norfolk markets, respectively).  Since Garrett County, MD is Pittsburgh DMA, it is the only county in MD on UTC -5.  My line in NY state and PA is a little bit farther west; only Rochester and Buffalo are part of UTC -5 in NY, while Pittsburgh, Erie, and Altoona/Johnstown are in PA.  In VA, the DC, Richmond, Norfolk, Williamsburg, and Harrisonburg DMA's are part of UTC -4.  The UTC -5/ -6  line leaves the DMA's along the river such as New Orleans, Memphis, St. Louis, and the Twin Cities  on UTC-5.  The few counties in eastern OR that are UTC -6 are part of the Boise market, the few in northeastern NV are part of the SLC market, and the one county in AZ is part of the Albuquerque market (and is the only county in AZ that observes DT). The UTC -7 portion in northern ID is part of the Spokane DMA. 

[hotdogPi]

Time zones should have nothing to do with TV markets. I can understand not splitting a metro area, but TV markets go way beyond what is typically considered a given city's metro area.

[tradephoric]

Running standard time year-round pretty much guarantees that we increase from 4 to 5 time zones in the Continental US.

So does permanent DST (assuming, in both cases, that one Pacific Time state drops DST/stays on PST, rather than moving to year round PDT/MST*). That, say, Florida is on EDT year-round makes it at least de facto AST*.

*I'd imagine these names would shift too, but kept current names for ease of reference.

No Pacific state has shown an interest in running standard-time year round.  In fact, in a few days Californians will be voting on a proposal that would pave the way for the state to run permanent DST.  Assuming no Pacific state wants to run standard time year-round, there would still be 4 main time-zones if the nation was on permanent DST.  OTOH, if the nation eliminates DST completely, New England states will ban together and try to change to the Atlantic time zone.  It's bad enough their winters are SHIT, there's no way in hell Bostonians are going to put up with 7:24PM sunsets during the summer solstice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4EUTMPuvHo

[Scott5114]

The existing DST thread is tedious and repetitive enough that we don't need the same posts repeated in a second thread.