The Atlantic Time Zone reimagined

[The Nature Boy]

I was going to post this in the geographic oddities thread but figured it was a discussion that should be spun off into its own thread. It was sparked by a discussion on pre-4 PM sunsets.

If I were redoing the Atlantic Time Zone, I would do this:

- All of Maine
- All of New Hampshire
- All of Vermont (except Bennington County because of its ties to Albany)
- All of Massachusetts (except Berkshire County because of its ties to Albany)
- All of Connecticut (except Fairfield County because of its ties to NYC)
- All of Rhode Island
- All of Quebec
- The Canadian Maritime provinces
- Clinton, Essex and Franklin Counties in New York (just for continuity with Burlington, VT)

I've tried to preserve a few media markets here. The Boston media market was easy to preserve, of course. The Albany media market required keeping a county in MA and VT in the eastern time zone. The NYC media market required keeping Fairfield County in the eastern time zone as well.

On the other side, Burlington pulled three New York counties into the Atlantic time zone.

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Thoughts? Revisions? Discussion?

[empirestate]

What made you decide to split Ottawa/Gatineau?


iPhone

[The Nature Boy]

What made you decide to split Ottawa/Gatineau?


iPhone

Nothing in particular, I don't know enough about Quebec geography to make a dividing line and I wanted to keep Montreal with Burlington and Plattsburgh since a couple of the local affiliates are available via cable (and maybe over the air) in Montreal. It likely makes sense to keep the areas around Ottawa with Ottawa, but I don't know the political/media dynamics of that region.

My inclusion of Quebec was based on a comment that someone made in the geographic oddities thread about early sunsets and the aforementioned connection to Burlington/Plattsburgh.

[TXtoNJ]

I'd expand it further - add Northern Virginia east of Leesburg, DC, Maryland east of Frederick, Delmarva, Eastern PA (east of Lancaster), NJ and Delaware, and all of NY west of Utica (including NYC). You could introduce it by calling it "Permanent DST".

I'd then add AL and the rest of TN and KY to Eastern Time, and consider abolishing Pacific Time altogether, moving that area to Mountain Time.

[The Nature Boy]

I'd expand it further - add Northern Virginia east of Leesburg, DC, Maryland east of Frederick, Delmarva, Eastern PA (east of Lancaster), NJ and Delaware, and all of NY west of Utica (including NYC). You could introduce it by calling it "Permanent DST".

I'd then add AL and the rest of TN and KY to Eastern Time, and consider abolishing Pacific Time altogether, moving that area to Mountain Time.

I'd be iffy about including anything outside of the extreme Northeast. Sunset in Boston is already almost an hour ahead of DC, the point would be to remedy that a bit by separating them.

[ghYHZ]

What made you decide to split Ottawa/Gatineau?
iPhone

Nothing in particular, I don't know enough about Quebec geography to make a dividing line and I wanted to keep Montreal with Burlington and Plattsburgh since a couple of the local affiliates are available via cable (and maybe over the air) in Montreal. It likely makes sense to keep the areas around Ottawa with Ottawa, but I don't know the political/media dynamics of that region.

My inclusion of Quebec was based on a comment that someone made in the geographic oddities thread about early sunsets and the aforementioned connection to Burlington/Plattsburgh.

Wouldn't work.

Ottawa/Gatineau is the National Capital Region. That would be like dividing the District of Columbia between two time zones.

[TXtoNJ]

I'd expand it further - add Northern Virginia east of Leesburg, DC, Maryland east of Frederick, Delmarva, Eastern PA (east of Lancaster), NJ and Delaware, and all of NY west of Utica (including NYC). You could introduce it by calling it "Permanent DST".

I'd then add AL and the rest of TN and KY to Eastern Time, and consider abolishing Pacific Time altogether, moving that area to Mountain Time.

I'd be iffy about including anything outside of the extreme Northeast. Sunset in Boston is already almost an hour ahead of DC, the point would be to remedy that a bit by separating them.

In Philly, people hate the 4:30 sunset there, too. I think for economic reasons, you need the entire Northeast in one time zone.

[The Nature Boy]

I'd expand it further - add Northern Virginia east of Leesburg, DC, Maryland east of Frederick, Delmarva, Eastern PA (east of Lancaster), NJ and Delaware, and all of NY west of Utica (including NYC). You could introduce it by calling it "Permanent DST".

I'd then add AL and the rest of TN and KY to Eastern Time, and consider abolishing Pacific Time altogether, moving that area to Mountain Time.

I'd be iffy about including anything outside of the extreme Northeast. Sunset in Boston is already almost an hour ahead of DC, the point would be to remedy that a bit by separating them.

In Philly, people hate the 4:30 sunset there, too. I think for economic reasons, you need the entire Northeast in one time zone.

In Northern New England, we're dealing with pre-4:00 sunsets and it wouldn't make sense to pull NH, VT and ME out of the eastern time zone without pulling in Boston as well.

Though I do see the argument for the rest of the Northeast (and it wouldn't affect me either way), I'm not entirely sure if NYC would want to be a full 2 hours ahead of Chicago and 4 hours ahead of LA. Being an hour behind Boston probably wouldn't be a terribly huge deal when you consider the tradeoff. Keep in mind that I'm pulling out Boston, Hartford, Springfield and a bunch of sparsely populated places.

Plus other states *coughMichiganOhioandIndianacough* seem to value being in whatever time zone that New York is in. I've heard that some of the resistance to going to Central for the Great Lakes states stems around business dealings between Detroit/Cleveland and New York. If NYC moves to Atlantic then things get messy and we'll end up with things like 9 AM sunrises in Detroit.

What made you decide to split Ottawa/Gatineau?
iPhone

Nothing in particular, I don't know enough about Quebec geography to make a dividing line and I wanted to keep Montreal with Burlington and Plattsburgh since a couple of the local affiliates are available via cable (and maybe over the air) in Montreal. It likely makes sense to keep the areas around Ottawa with Ottawa, but I don't know the political/media dynamics of that region.

My inclusion of Quebec was based on a comment that someone made in the geographic oddities thread about early sunsets and the aforementioned connection to Burlington/Plattsburgh.

Wouldn't work.

Ottawa/Gatineau is the National Capital Region. That would be like dividing the District of Columbia between two time zones.

You could remedy this by having Montreal's metro area be the western extent of the Atlantic time zone.

[ghYHZ]

I have older Quebec Maps that shown the division between Eastern and Atlantic time being at Riviere-du-Loup....at roughly a projection north of the current ET/AT line at the Maine- New Brunswick border.

Gaspe, Quebec which is 450km east of Riviere-du-Loup and really should be in Atlantic Time Zone has sunrise today at 6:45am and sunset at 3:25pm. (A sunrise there at 7:45 and sunset at 4:25 would be more reflective of Atlantic Time)

[The Nature Boy]

I have older Quebec Maps that shown the division between Eastern and Atlantic time being at Riviere-du-Loup....at roughly a projection north of the current ET/AT line at the Maine- New Brunswick border.

Gaspe, Quebec which is 450km east of Riviere-du-Loup and really should be in Atlantic Time Zone has sunrise today at 6:45am and sunset at 3:25pm. (A sunrise there at 7:45 and sunset at 4:25 would be more reflective of Atlantic Time)

It's the same here in Maine. That's part of the inspiration for this idea. Eastern New England should be the Atlantic time zone but you can't pull NH out without also taking Vermont because of the Burlington media market extending into much of the state. You mitigate that somewhat by taking the 3 NY counties that are in the Burlington market but also leaving the parts of VT, MA and CT that extend into NY media markets in the eastern time zone.

It's not a perfect solution for those of us in the extreme east, it'd be incredibly helpful.

[TXtoNJ]

I'd expand it further - add Northern Virginia east of Leesburg, DC, Maryland east of Frederick, Delmarva, Eastern PA (east of Lancaster), NJ and Delaware, and all of NY west of Utica (including NYC). You could introduce it by calling it "Permanent DST".

I'd then add AL and the rest of TN and KY to Eastern Time, and consider abolishing Pacific Time altogether, moving that area to Mountain Time.

I'd be iffy about including anything outside of the extreme Northeast. Sunset in Boston is already almost an hour ahead of DC, the point would be to remedy that a bit by separating them.

In Philly, people hate the 4:30 sunset there, too. I think for economic reasons, you need the entire Northeast in one time zone.

In Northern New England, we're dealing with pre-4:00 sunsets and it wouldn't make sense to pull NH, VT and ME out of the eastern time zone without pulling in Boston as well.

Though I do see the argument for the rest of the Northeast (and it wouldn't affect me either way), I'm not entirely sure if NYC would want to be a full 2 hours ahead of Chicago and 4 hours ahead of LA. Being an hour behind Boston probably wouldn't be a terribly huge deal when you consider the tradeoff. Keep in mind that I'm pulling out Boston, Hartford, Springfield and a bunch of sparsely populated places.

Plus other states *coughMichiganOhioandIndianacough* seem to value being in whatever time zone that New York is in. I've heard that some of the resistance to going to Central for the Great Lakes states stems around business dealings between Detroit/Cleveland and New York. If NYC moves to Atlantic then things get messy and we'll end up with things like 9 AM sunrises in Detroit.

That's true, but I think the desire of the NYC market to be closer to London might override those concerns. A four-hour time difference means Wall Street and City have an entire half day of overlapping business.

While Detroit going to Eastern made geographical sense, making the economic argument stronger, going to Atlantic simply does not.

[jeffandnicole]

I'd expand it further - add Northern Virginia east of Leesburg, DC, Maryland east of Frederick, Delmarva, Eastern PA (east of Lancaster), NJ and Delaware, and all of NY west of Utica (including NYC). You could introduce it by calling it "Permanent DST".

Then you'll have some areas where the sun wouldn't rise until 8:30am.

That's true, but I think the desire of the NYC market to be closer to London might override those concerns. A four-hour time difference means Wall Street and City have an entire half day of overlapping business.

Is there really that much desire to closer align NYC with an international city?  The majority of the people that need to care about London already are doing so, which is probably several hundred out of the millions of people working in NYC.

And by moving an hour ahead, they would be 4 hours ahead of Los Angeles and other west coast cities, which I would think is much more important.  As it is, there are many LA based companies that bring in employees early to deal with NYC hours.  They're not gonna want to come in an hour earlier.

[The Nature Boy]

There's no way that NYC could move out of the eastern time zone, there's way too much tied to them being there.

Speaking of NYC though, it would be weird if Boston became the first city to ring in the New Year. It might be a slight boost in tourism.

[bandit957]

Maybe we should just move everything to its natural time zone, and give the time zones perfectly straight boundaries. This would make DST easier to swallow around here.

[Pete from Boston]

Maybe we should just move everything to its natural time zone, and give the time zones perfectly straight boundaries. This would make DST easier to swallow around here.

Oh really?  And how easy to swallow would it make time zones that split city blocks, apartment buildings, college campuses, etc.?

[Pink Jazz]

There's no way that NYC could move out of the eastern time zone, there's way too much tied to them being there.

Speaking of NYC though, it would be weird if Boston became the first city to ring in the New Year. It might be a slight boost in tourism.

Boston would lose to Guam, which claims to be "Where America's Day Begins" since it is west of the International Date Line.  However, where America's Day truly begins is Wake Island, which has no permanent residents.

[GaryV]

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.

Pushing the border of AST west would do the same thing that happens along the divide between EST and CST in the midwest - it stays dark much earlier in the morning.

[bandit957]

Maybe we should just move everything to its natural time zone, and give the time zones perfectly straight boundaries. This would make DST easier to swallow around here.

Oh really?  And how easy to swallow would it make time zones that split city blocks, apartment buildings, college campuses, etc.?

I'm content to just live with it, if it means I won't feel like I got run over by a bus for 8 months a year.

[Pete from Boston]

Maybe we should just move everything to its natural time zone, and give the time zones perfectly straight boundaries. This would make DST easier to swallow around here.

Oh really?  And how easy to swallow would it make time zones that split city blocks, apartment buildings, college campuses, etc.?

I'm content to just live with it, if it means I won't feel like I got run over by a bus for 8 months a year.

I think this is not most people's feeling about DST or anything else.

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

[bandit957]

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.

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.

[formulanone]

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.

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.

A three-day-long annoyance is not a disability.

[Pete from Boston]

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.

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.

Straight, arbitrary lines drawn indiscriminate of their very disruptive effects are better than very little.

[Pete from Boston]

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.

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.

A three-day-long annoyance is not a disability.

This is the United States.  Inconvenience is practically a human rights violation.

[The Nature Boy]

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

[Duke87]

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.