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.
---
Thoughts? Revisions? Discussion?
What made you decide to split Ottawa/Gatineau?
iPhone
Quote from: empirestate on November 30, 2015, 09:25:38 AM
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.
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.
Quote from: TXtoNJ on November 30, 2015, 10:39:16 AM
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.
Quote from: The Nature Boy on November 30, 2015, 09:37:19 AM
Quote from: empirestate on November 30, 2015, 09:25:38 AM
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.
Quote from: The Nature Boy on November 30, 2015, 10:44:57 AM
Quote from: TXtoNJ on November 30, 2015, 10:39:16 AM
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.
Quote from: TXtoNJ on November 30, 2015, 11:34:51 AM
Quote from: The Nature Boy on November 30, 2015, 10:44:57 AM
Quote from: TXtoNJ on November 30, 2015, 10:39:16 AM
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.
Quote from: ghYHZ on November 30, 2015, 11:27:08 AM
Quote from: The Nature Boy on November 30, 2015, 09:37:19 AM
Quote from: empirestate on November 30, 2015, 09:25:38 AM
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.
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)
Quote from: ghYHZ on November 30, 2015, 12:00:51 PM
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.
Quote from: The Nature Boy on November 30, 2015, 11:48:57 AM
Quote from: TXtoNJ on November 30, 2015, 11:34:51 AM
Quote from: The Nature Boy on November 30, 2015, 10:44:57 AM
Quote from: TXtoNJ on November 30, 2015, 10:39:16 AM
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.
Quote from: TXtoNJ on November 30, 2015, 10:39:16 AM
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.
Quote from: TXtoNJ on November 30, 2015, 12:31:05 PM
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.
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.
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.
Quote from: bandit957 on November 30, 2015, 05:31:44 PM
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.?
Quote from: The Nature Boy on November 30, 2015, 01:56:41 PM
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.
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.
Quote from: Pete from Boston on November 30, 2015, 05:58:19 PM
Quote from: bandit957 on November 30, 2015, 05:31:44 PM
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.
Quote from: bandit957 on November 30, 2015, 07:50:14 PM
Quote from: Pete from Boston on November 30, 2015, 05:58:19 PM
Quote from: bandit957 on November 30, 2015, 05:31:44 PM
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.
Quote from: Pete from Boston on November 30, 2015, 08:13:23 PM
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.
Quote from: bandit957 on November 30, 2015, 08:16:33 PM
Quote from: Pete from Boston on November 30, 2015, 08:13:23 PM
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.
Quote from: bandit957 on November 30, 2015, 08:16:33 PM
Quote from: Pete from Boston on November 30, 2015, 08:13:23 PM
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.
Quote from: formulanone on November 30, 2015, 08:37:59 PM
Quote from: bandit957 on November 30, 2015, 08:16:33 PM
Quote from: Pete from Boston on November 30, 2015, 08:13:23 PM
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.
If we separated every place into its true time zone, we'd have people separated by minutes. Imagine advertising an event!
Quote from: GaryV on November 30, 2015, 06:57:05 PM
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. (http://www.timeanddate.com/sun/usa/new-york?month=11&year=2015)
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.
Quote from: The Nature Boy on November 30, 2015, 09:18:35 PM
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 (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)
Quote from: bandit957 on November 30, 2015, 08:16:33 PM
Quote from: Pete from Boston on November 30, 2015, 08:13:23 PM
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?
QuoteI'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.
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.
Quote from: SD Mapman on November 30, 2015, 11:25:12 PM
Quote from: The Nature Boy on November 30, 2015, 09:18:35 PM
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 (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.
Quote from: The Nature Boy on November 30, 2015, 11:44:32 PM
Quote from: SD Mapman on November 30, 2015, 11:25:12 PM
Quote from: The Nature Boy on November 30, 2015, 09:18:35 PM
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 (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.
Quote from: Duke87 on November 30, 2015, 11:20:32 PM
Quote from: GaryV on November 30, 2015, 06:57:05 PM
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. (http://www.timeanddate.com/sun/usa/new-york?month=11&year=2015)
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?
Quote from: hbelkins on November 30, 2015, 11:28:05 PM
Quote from: bandit957 on November 30, 2015, 08:16:33 PM
Quote from: Pete from Boston on November 30, 2015, 08:13:23 PM
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?
QuoteI'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?
Quote from: TXtoNJ on December 01, 2015, 09:58:48 AM
Quote from: The Nature Boy on November 30, 2015, 11:44:32 PM
Quote from: SD Mapman on November 30, 2015, 11:25:12 PM
Quote from: The Nature Boy on November 30, 2015, 09:18:35 PM
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 (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.
Quote from: vdeane on December 01, 2015, 01:24:56 PM
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
Quote from: kkt on December 01, 2015, 04:30:58 PM
Quote from: TXtoNJ on December 01, 2015, 09:58:48 AM
Quote from: The Nature Boy on November 30, 2015, 11:44:32 PM
Quote from: SD Mapman on November 30, 2015, 11:25:12 PM
Quote from: The Nature Boy on November 30, 2015, 09:18:35 PM
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 (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.
Quote from: vdeane on December 01, 2015, 01:24:56 PMdelayed 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.
Quote from: The Nature Boy on November 30, 2015, 09:18:35 PMIf 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.
Quote from: english si on December 02, 2015, 03:15:48 AM
Quote from: The Nature Boy on November 30, 2015, 09:18:35 PMIf 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.
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.
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.
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.
Quote from: mrsman on December 03, 2015, 12:42:49 AM
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.
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.
Quote from: bandit957 on December 03, 2015, 03:14:13 PM
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.
Quote from: bandit957 on December 03, 2015, 03:14:13 PM
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."
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!
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...
Cincinnati should really be on Central Time.
Quote from: lordsutch on December 04, 2015, 12:42:34 AMand shifting the boundary in Kentucky further east as well.
No, no, a thousand times no.
Quote from: bandit957 on December 04, 2015, 11:42:28 AM
Cincinnati should really be on Central Time.
As long as Lexington and Frankfort stay in the Eastern time zone, go ahead and move Cincinnati.
Quote from: hbelkins on December 04, 2015, 04:46:56 PM
As long as Lexington and Frankfort stay in the Eastern time zone, go ahead and move Cincinnati.
Lexington used to be on Central Time.
Quote from: bandit957 on December 05, 2015, 01:19:09 PM
Quote from: hbelkins on December 04, 2015, 04:46:56 PM
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.
I read years ago in the local Jacksonville paper that all of Florida and Georgia at one time were Central Time Zone.
Quote from: jwolfer on December 06, 2015, 12:00:10 AM
I read years ago in the local Jacksonville paper that all of Florida and Georgia at one time were Central Time Zone.
1913:
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Time_zone_map_of_the_United_States_1913_%28colorized%29.png)
Quote from: Pete from Boston on December 06, 2015, 03:16:46 AM
Quote from: jwolfer on December 06, 2015, 12:00:10 AM
I read years ago in the local Jacksonville paper that all of Florida and Georgia at one time were Central Time Zone.
1913:
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Time_zone_map_of_the_United_States_1913_%28colorized%29.png)
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.
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.
Quote from: Alps on December 06, 2015, 08:59:05 AM
Quote from: Pete from Boston on December 06, 2015, 03:16:46 AM
Quote from: jwolfer on December 06, 2015, 12:00:10 AM
I read years ago in the local Jacksonville paper that all of Florida and Georgia at one time were Central Time Zone.
1913:
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Time_zone_map_of_the_United_States_1913_%28colorized%29.png)
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?
Florida and Georgia being in the Central Time Zone here is interesting. Here's a 1914 map of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad:
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Frailga.com%2Facl14.jpg&hash=d86d60f0aa52b247cab636fc98ac05d1d2df30a5)
Switch everyone to UTC. The sun rises when it rises, and sets when it sets; communities can plan their school / work / church schedules accordingly.
Quote from: hbelkins on December 05, 2015, 09:46:54 PM
Quote from: bandit957 on December 05, 2015, 01:19:09 PM
Quote from: hbelkins on December 04, 2015, 04:46:56 PM
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.
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 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abitibi%E2%80%94T%C3%A9miscamingue). 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 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac_Regional_County_Municipality) and Les Collines-de-l'Outaouais (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Collines-de-l%27Outaouais_Regional_County_Municipality) MRCs in full, plus the City of Gatineau and a small southern part of the La Vallée-de-la-Gatineau (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Vall%C3%A9e-de-la-Gatineau_Regional_County_Municipality) MRC.
The rest of Quebec would then be on AT.
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.
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.
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.
Quote from: vtk on December 07, 2015, 02:02:32 AM
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!
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
Quote from: CNGL-Leudimin on December 26, 2015, 05:06:00 AM
Quote from: vtk on December 07, 2015, 02:02:32 AM
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.
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.
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.)
I would not like this because sunday night football would start at 9:30.
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on November 06, 2017, 08:38:08 AM
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.
Quote from: TheHighwayMan394 on November 06, 2017, 08:59:39 AM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on November 06, 2017, 08:38:08 AM
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.
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.
Quote from: cabiness42 on November 06, 2017, 09:19:09 AM
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.)
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.
Quote from: 1 on November 06, 2017, 09:26:40 AM
Quote from: cabiness42 on November 06, 2017, 09:19:09 AM
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.
Quote from: TheHighwayMan394 on November 06, 2017, 08:59:39 AM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on November 06, 2017, 08:38:08 AM
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.
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
Quote from: froggie on November 06, 2017, 09:55:22 AM
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.
I think you misunderstood my point. I don't mean it's a big issue for the league. Games everywhere except Foxboro would certainly continue to be played on the same schedule they are now. As to Foxboro, during September and October there would be no issue at all since New England would be on Atlantic
Standard Time, which is the same as Eastern Daylight Time. Games in Foxboro in November and December, when that location would be an hour ahead of Eastern Time, might or might not be moved up an hour earlier because who knows how the NFL and the networks might react to having the Sunday night game potentially competing with the other networks' broadcasts. I tend to think for the one or two times a year this might be likely to be an issue it wouldn't be a huge problem, but who knows. (Monday and Thursday night games don't really pose the same issue because there's no other game at the same time, unless perhaps the Patriots hosted the night game on Thanksgiving.) It wasn't an issue for UEFA the year the Champions League final was played in Moscow–they kicked off at 11 PM local time to keep it at a reasonable time in the rest of Europe. We've already seen the NFL's willingness to play games at times that may not be ideal for some viewers, as the London games this year generally kicked off at 2:30 PM London Time (9:30 AM Eastern, which is 6:30 AM Pacific). They did make an exception for the Cardinals—Rams game in London, which was played at 1:00 PM Eastern (10:00 AM Pacific).
Anyway, I was referring to
viewers in those states, and I was responding to TheHighwayMan394. He said only one team would be affected by the change. My point was that it's not the team so much as anyone in that area watching a night game. That is, if the Redskins host the Cowboys on Sunday Night Football after the clocks go back, if Maine were on Atlantic Time the game would air at 9:25 PM in Maine. Do I think this is all that big a deal? Not really. You get used to it, or you just don't watch to the end (many of us on Eastern Time don't watch night games through to the end). Same way if you're in the Central Time Zone you get used to shows airing at weird times–when I worked in Montgomery one summer, it was really weird having Seinfeld airing at 8:00, but I got used to it very quickly. I'm sure people on the Island of Newfoundland deal just fine with programming being on rather late at night (a show airing at 9:00 Eastern Time airs at 10:30 in Newfoundland).
Nowadays, of course, TV is far less of an issue than it used to be, at least for non-sports or other non-live programming, because of DVRs. I think we can all agree DVRs are far more convenient than VCRs when it comes to dealing with shows that air at inconvenient times!
Quote from: jp the roadgeek on November 06, 2017, 10:15:18 AM
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
Suffolk County's shortest day is 12/21, with an EST sunrise of 7:12 and sunset of 4:25. That's as centered around noon as you can get. You can't prevent sunsets before 5pm that far north unless you're moving sunrise to an unreasonably late time in the morning.
Quote from: jp the roadgeek on November 06, 2017, 10:15:18 AM
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.
The proposal as stated above has nothing to do with the NYC area, as Connecticut isn't in the plans to switch. And for that matter, only 3 of the 6 New England States are referenced.
Seattle's latest sunrise is 7:57 AM, and earliest sunset is 4:17 PM.
Our earliest sunrise is 5:11 and latest sunset is 9:11 PM (PDT).
I'm really glad we have daylight savings time. We certainly don't need 4:11 AM sunrises or 3:17 PM sunsets.
Quote from: cabiness42 on November 06, 2017, 09:19:09 AM
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.
I agree. If we extend this East to Europe, then it becomes clear Spain should be in Western Europe, not Central Europe as it stands now. But somehow we have already adjusted our customs accordingly, so switching back would require to do everything "earlier".
Quote from: 1 on November 06, 2017, 09:26:40 AM3. 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.)
Yup. For forum purposes I use Eastern but with European DST rules, which for a few days a year (such as last week) puts me in Central instead. Note that this is different from what I've configured, which matches my local time except for those same days, when it's off by one hour.
Quote from: kkt on November 06, 2017, 02:35:07 PM
Seattle's latest sunrise is 7:57 AM, and earliest sunset is 4:17 PM.
Our earliest sunrise is 5:11 and latest sunset is 9:11 PM (PDT).
I'm really glad we have daylight savings time. We certainly don't need 4:11 AM sunrises or 3:17 PM sunsets.
You wouldn't get that 3:17pm sunset if daylights savings time was eliminated. Your earliest sunset is at 4:17 standard time. If DST existed all year long, it would be a 5:17 sunset. But it wouldn't go backwards.
A bigger problem is how far the Eastern time zone extends into the mid-West. The boundary should be a little west of Cleveland, around Sandusky. All of Michigan and all of Indiana should be on Central time. The way it is now their Eastern sunrise and sunset times are way out of whack.
Also, it is Daylight Saving Time, not Savings, as was pointed out recently in the Washington Post.
Quote from: jeffandnicole on November 06, 2017, 03:33:43 PM
Quote from: kkt on November 06, 2017, 02:35:07 PM
Seattle's latest sunrise is 7:57 AM, and earliest sunset is 4:17 PM.
Our earliest sunrise is 5:11 and latest sunset is 9:11 PM (PDT).
I'm really glad we have daylight savings time. We certainly don't need 4:11 AM sunrises or 3:17 PM sunsets.
You wouldn't get that 3:17pm sunset if daylights savings time was eliminated. Your earliest sunset is at 4:17 standard time. If DST existed all year long, it would be a 5:17 sunset. But it wouldn't go backwards.
You're right, we wouldn't get a 3:17pm sunset.
But if we had year-round DST, we'd get a 8:57am sunrise in midwinter, so pretty much all the morning AND afternoon commutes would be in darkness. I'm glad we don't have that either.
Quote from: jp the roadgeekThe 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.
The latter part of this is not true. If New England was in AST, the earliest sunsets (far eastern Maine) would be around quarter-to-five. And just after 5 where I live. I'm fine with that. It means I'd have a sunrise pushing close to 8:30am around New Year's, but I'd rather have that than a 4pm sunset.
Quote from: froggie on November 06, 2017, 04:52:53 PM
Quote from: jp the roadgeekThe 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.
The latter part of this is not true. If New England was in AST, the earliest sunsets (far eastern Maine) would be around quarter-to-five. And just after 5 where I live. I'm fine with that. It means I'd have a sunrise pushing close to 8:30am around New Year's, but I'd rather have that than a 4pm sunset.
An awful lot of kids get on school buses between 7:30 and 8:30, which is why an awful lot of people would not be OK with a sunrise pushing 8:30.
I would rather have it be a bit dark in the morning than dark at 4 pm.
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on November 06, 2017, 05:09:07 PM
I would rather have it be a bit dark in the morning than dark at 4 pm.
As a teenager and maybe maybe even as a parent of a teenager, but as a parent of small kids, I'd really rather not have it be dark when they're boarding their school bus at 7:45.
Quote from: roadguy2 on November 06, 2017, 06:47:05 PM
Quote from: jeffandnicole on November 06, 2017, 10:07:22 AM
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.
This happens already. Mountain time sees shows an hour later than Eastern and Central time. Pacific sees them 3 hours later.
And in Central and Mountain time, the evening news is at 10 pm.
Re-read what you highlighted: A small fraction of the country. The other time zones are roughly 1/4 of the country each.