The Atlantic Time Zone reimagined

[SD Mapman]

If we separated every place into its true time zone, we'd have people separated by minutes. Imagine advertising an event!

Well, this is what it was...
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2014/05/01/time_diagram_clock_chart_from_pre_time_zone_era.html

(I think they even have Sioux Falls on that... even back then no one cared about West River)

[hbelkins]

The scenario you propose is one of absolute chaos.  But you knew that.

It's better than the chaos currently being created in people's lives by poorly drawn time zones.

What chaos?

I'm waiting for some smart lawyer to file a suit under the Americans with Disabilities Act to force the time zones to be redrawn.

That "smart lawyer" would be laughed out of court, and rightly so. What do time zones have to do with disabilities -- real, live, true disabilities? Nothing.

[jp the roadgeek]

I could see a time zone line running from just west of the Ottawa Metro down 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.

[The Nature Boy]

If we separated every place into its true time zone, we'd have people separated by minutes. Imagine advertising an event!

Well, this is what it was...
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2014/05/01/time_diagram_clock_chart_from_pre_time_zone_era.html

(I think they even have Sioux Falls on that... even back then no one cared about West River)

And within Maine, Bangor and Portland would be 10 minutes apart. There's no way you could do that today and have it work at all.

[TXtoNJ]

If we separated every place into its true time zone, we'd have people separated by minutes. Imagine advertising an event!

Well, this is what it was...
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2014/05/01/time_diagram_clock_chart_from_pre_time_zone_era.html

(I think they even have Sioux Falls on that... even back then no one cared about West River)

And within Maine, Bangor and Portland would be 10 minutes apart. There's no way you could do that today and have it work at all.

Well, you could have UTC for business purposes, and local time for residents. GPS would make the transition easy on devices.

[vdeane]

As I posted in the other thread, the Eastern time zone should center on the 75th meridian.  It would then stretch east to 67.5 degrees - meaning all of Maine except for that part east of the n/s border with New Brunswick.  So actually the states in New England that are in EST are in the proper time zone by longitude.

I think part of the problem is that at this time of year, due to the complexities of celestial movement, sunrise and sunset are skewed earlier. For example, today in New York City sunrise was at 6:59 AM and sunset at 4:30 PM, for a day of roughly 9 1/2 hours. If we matched solar time sunrise would be at 7:15 and Sunset at 4:45. Being about 15 minutes behind solar time you'd think would imply being about 3.75 degrees east of the appropriate meridian, but we're actually only about 1 degree east of it.

But in actuality, sunset has at this point gotten about as early as it is going to. On the Winter Solstice, the sun will set at 4:32 (a couple minutes later than today!) but it won't rise until 7:16. By the end of January we will see things skew the opposite way, with us ending up as much as 10 minutes ahead of solar time.

Some fun tables to play with.

What this means is that if we were to start shifting time zones west as people tend to suggest at this time of year, they might regret the decision later in winter when the sun is rising after 8 AM.

That's a question I have been wondering about for a while now... just why does the sunset time in the spring change far faster than the sunrise time?

The scenario you propose is one of absolute chaos.  But you knew that.

It's better than the chaos currently being created in people's lives by poorly drawn time zones.

What chaos?

I'm waiting for some smart lawyer to file a suit under the Americans with Disabilities Act to force the time zones to be redrawn.

That "smart lawyer" would be laughed out of court, and rightly so. What do time zones have to do with disabilities -- real, live, true disabilities? Nothing.

The effects of delayed sleep phase syndrome combined with late sunrises?

[kkt]

If we separated every place into its true time zone, we'd have people separated by minutes. Imagine advertising an event!

Well, this is what it was...
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2014/05/01/time_diagram_clock_chart_from_pre_time_zone_era.html

(I think they even have Sioux Falls on that... even back then no one cared about West River)

And within Maine, Bangor and Portland would be 10 minutes apart. There's no way you could do that today and have it work at all.

Well, you could have UTC for business purposes, and local time for residents. GPS would make the transition easy on devices.

If they wanted to use UTC, they could.  Astronomers do.  Superpowers' militaries do.  I'd bet long-haul airlines either use UTC or pick a single time zone for all their operations.  If more people aren't using UTC in their daily lives, it's probably because they don't want to.

[catch22]

That's a question I have been wondering about for a while now... just why does the sunset time in the spring change far faster than the sunrise time?

Here's some not-so-light reading from the U.S. Naval Observatory that helps explain that.

"Sunrise and Sunset Times Near the Solstices"
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/rs_solstices.php

also "The Equation of Time"
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/eqtime.php

[TXtoNJ]

If we separated every place into its true time zone, we'd have people separated by minutes. Imagine advertising an event!

Well, this is what it was...
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2014/05/01/time_diagram_clock_chart_from_pre_time_zone_era.html

(I think they even have Sioux Falls on that... even back then no one cared about West River)

And within Maine, Bangor and Portland would be 10 minutes apart. There's no way you could do that today and have it work at all.

Well, you could have UTC for business purposes, and local time for residents. GPS would make the transition easy on devices.

If they wanted to use UTC, they could.  Astronomers do.  Superpowers' militaries do.  I'd bet long-haul airlines either use UTC or pick a single time zone for all their operations.  If more people aren't using UTC in their daily lives, it's probably because they don't want to.

Or, given standard time zones, there's no inertia to.

[hbelkins]

delayed sleep phase syndrome

Great googly-moogly, what kind of new-age psychobabble is that? It must come from the world of trigger warnings, safe spaces and all of that other happy horsecrap that we've been hearing so much about lately.

[english si]

If we separated every place into its true time zone, we'd have people separated by minutes. Imagine advertising an event!

It was the case until 1880 (though other countries might not have taken so long - the UK had case law saying that local mean time was the correct time), and even then...

Before the Nazi invasion put much of Western Europe on Berlin Time (where it has strangely stayed since), the Netherlands were on +00:20, having simplified from a +0:19:32.13 offset from GMT in 1937.

Ireland was put on Dublin Time by the same time that put Britain on Greenwich Mean Time (in 1880s). Dublin Time was −00:25:21, which changed in 1916 for War reasons.

France, Belgium, etc had more minuscule variations of GMT, based on the Paris meridian that is about 2.5 degrees east, until Herr Hitler put them on fascist time*.

*I really don't like CET's unnatural western border, especially when some dimwitted MP proposes it for the UK, forgetting we trialled it in the 70s and hated it, with southern and eastern MPs leading the charge against keeping something that would effect northern/western areas more and it therefore losing the vote to continue with it severely.

[The Nature Boy]

If we separated every place into its true time zone, we'd have people separated by minutes. Imagine advertising an event!

It was the case until 1880 (though other countries might not have taken so long - the UK had case law saying that local mean time was the correct time), and even then...

Before the Nazi invasion put much of Western Europe on Berlin Time (where it has strangely stayed since), the Netherlands were on +00:20, having simplified from a +0:19:32.13 offset from GMT in 1937.

Ireland was put on Dublin Time by the same time that put Britain on Greenwich Mean Time (in 1880s). Dublin Time was −00:25:21, which changed in 1916 for War reasons.

France, Belgium, etc had more minuscule variations of GMT, based on the Paris meridian that is about 2.5 degrees east, until Herr Hitler put them on fascist time*.

*I really don't like CET's unnatural western border, especially when some dimwitted MP proposes it for the UK, forgetting we trialled it in the 70s and hated it, with southern and eastern MPs leading the charge against keeping something that would effect northern/western areas more and it therefore losing the vote to continue with it severely.

The issue though is that in 1880, the age of instant communication was in its infancy. Television certainly didn't exist yet. I think you'd have to use UTC for advertising purposes. It's one thing to advertise for a play that will be seen only in the town but to advertise a television show when parts of your media market are 5 minutes apart? That might create problems.

[english si]

I was just pointing out how recent large-scale time zones, especially snap to integer number of hours offset ones, are.

I'd imagine that being 5 minutes behind a major city wouldn't be as hard to deal with as people might think.

The natives of Weston-super-Mare still have (as a minimum) the station's exterior clock (about) 5 minutes slow having resisted time standardisation in the 19th Century (brought on by railways and the timetabling thereof) and coped with that minor time difference (OK they can't cope with the major one that it is still the 20th Century there, and the 21st elsewhere). IIRC the timetable even had the times in local time with a note well into the 20th century.

I can cope with the visible clock on the oven (seen at the bottom of the stairs and has largest digits of any clock), that is the main source of finding out the time as I leave the house, being 5 minutes slow. The people 5 minutes behind would know that if something is advertised as being at 8pm on the telly, that they would need to turn on at 7.55pm to not miss the start.

While doable, it's not really advisable though.

[mrsman]

With all of this talk about the affects of DST, I note that most events in people's lives can be changed on their own.

If you don't like to drive at night, in most jobs, you could change your work schedule from 9-5 to 8-4.  Your schedule is now an hour earlier.  You don't need to change the timezone.

The only events in one's life that you cannot change unilaterally are those where you have to interact with other people.

So here are things that you can change the time on your own:

When you wake up;
When you exercise (most gyms have pretty flexible hours);
Work hours for most professional jobs;
When you go to restaurants, pharmacies, or grocery stores;
When you watch TV (with DVRs you can effectively time shift);
When you go to bed

Here are the times that are fixed and keep you stuck to the time zone:

Work hours at factories or service jobs;
School hours;
Public transportation (especially infrequent commuter trains);
Church

Any others???

--------------


Now as far as the complaints that towns have of having to deal with DST because of late sunrises in October, the easiest thing to do would be to change the school hours, not the time zone.  If school is normally 8-3 for most of the year, the schedule can be moved from 830-330 in October and then 8-3 in November (which is actually an additional half hour later thanks to the "fall back" time change).

And given the topic of the thread being Atlantic time, it is totally unnecessary.  Keep Eastern time, just have schools and work schedules start an hour earlier.

[jeffandnicole]

Heck, many churches have at least two sermons or masses.

Actually, while it seems like people are complaining more and more about DST vs ST, it's been going on every year for decades.  But, it's just like everything else: now with social media and internet forums, people can be more vocal and find others with common interests, and create a ruckus when one really doesn't need to be created.

If it's really important, people can move to a state...or a country...where the time remains the same all year around.

[Pete from Boston]

If you don't like to drive at night, in most jobs, you could change your work schedule from 9-5 to 8-4.  Your schedule is now an hour earlier.  You don't need to change the timezone.

A lot of jobs give you this flexibility.  I'm not sure I'd say most.

[bandit957]

This is a big deal, because I have a medical disorder that has caused serious, permanent nerve damage. I have to sleep at certain times.

[Pete from Boston]

This is a big deal, because I have a medical disorder that has caused serious, permanent nerve damage. I have to sleep at certain times.

You still can.  There is no way to design time zones that satisfy every need.

[The Nature Boy]

This is a big deal, because I have a medical disorder that has caused serious, permanent nerve damage. I have to sleep at certain times.

The key phrase in the ADA is "reasonable accommodations."

[lordsutch]

I work for a university that has five campuses spread over a fairly wide geographic area. If we went by local noon for scheduling purposes, videoconferencing and intercampus travel for classes and meetings would be a nightmare; there's a reason railways and the telegraph led to standardized time over broad geographic areas, after all.

Probably the only major change I'd make, other than abolishing DST, is shifting the Central/Eastern boundary to the Ohio/Indiana border and putting all of Indiana and Michigan (along with possibly Toledo) on Central time, and shifting the boundary in Kentucky further east as well. Currently the local solar noon in the summer in Terre Haute is around 1:40 pm!

[froggie]

I wouldn't have a problem with Vermont (and it'd be the entire state....Bennington County has more to do with the state than it does the Albany TV market, and even within TV, WCAX still penetrates down there) shifting to the Atlantic Time Zone.  I'd rather have an 8am sunrise than a 4pm sunset...

[bandit957]

Cincinnati should really be on Central Time.

[hbelkins]

and shifting the boundary in Kentucky further east as well.

No, no, a thousand times no.

Cincinnati should really be on Central Time.

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

[bandit957]

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

Lexington used to be on Central Time.

[hbelkins]

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.