Unite Indiana on a single time zone

I sent the following e-mail to the Indiana legislators today.


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With Organization Day coming up tomorrow in the General Assembly, I wanted to encourage you to seize this opportunity to pass a law or resolution petitioning the DOT to put the entire state of Indiana back into a single time zone, as we once were. With software and maps needing to be updated anyway to reflect the fact that we now observe Daylight Saving Time, this is a prime opportunity to act to unify the state, perhaps excepting the counties adjoining the Cincinnati and Louisville metropolitan areas which have been observing Eastern Daylight Time.

I support putting the entire state back in its original and natural position in the Central time zone. Supporting this move is the fact that that Indianapolis lies only 205 miles from the center of the Central zone (90 degrees), but is 590 miles from the center of the Eastern zone (75 degrees). Our borders are split about equally between the portions of Illinois and Kentucky observing Central time (394 miles) and the portions of Michigan, Ohio, and Kentucky observing Eastern (393). From a business perspective, Central puts us at most two hours from every other business in the continental United States versus up to three on Eastern.

From a personal perspective, we were already getting just as much additional summer evening daylight on year-round Central Daylight Time as Boston (exactly one time zone to our east) does on Eastern Daylight. I think the extra hour from observing Daylight Saving Time with most of the rest of the country would be a greater benefit in the winter mornings than it would in the summer evenings, when we already had plenty of daylight shifted from morning to evening.

For example, let's look at July 15, which falls during the Daylight Saving months. In Indianapolis this year on Central Daylight Time (same as Eastern Standard Time), the sunrise was 5:29 and the sunset was 8:12. This is 492 minutes after midday and 391 minutes before, or a net benefit from Daylight Saving Time in the Central zone of 101 minutes. By comparison, sunrise in Boston (Eastern Daylight Time) was 5:21 (399 minutes before midday) and sunset was 8:19 (499 minutes after midday). This gives them a net benefit from Eastern Daylight Saving Time of 100 minutes, virtually the same as we would have on Central Daylight Saving Time.

By comparison on February 11 next year (the non-DST period), if we were on Central time the sunrise in Indianapolis would be 6:42 and sunset 5:16. This is also virtually identical to Boston, one time zone to our east. Their sunrise that day is 6:46 and sunset 5:12. Why should Indiana's sunrise and sunset be that different from those exactly one time zone (15 degrees longitude) to our east?

The time zones are arranged every fifteen degrees longitude so that the winter time in each time zone is pretty close to local apparent time. Based on apparent time, the February 11 sunrise in Indy would be 6:43 (317 minutes before midday) and sunset would be 5:17 (317 minutes after midday), very close to our actual clock time on Central time that day.

If you can't see your way clear in this session to recommend a single time zone for Indiana to the DOT, I urge you to at least support a statewide referendum to obtain a clear measure of public opinion on this issue. Possible options on the referendum could include: 1) leave the time zone border within our state borders, as it is now, subject to individual requests of counties to the DOT, 2) put the entire state on Central time, or 3) put the entire state on Eastern time.

By the way, although I am an elected Republican precinct committeeman, I don't see any credible justification why attempting to seize this limited window of opportunity to reunite virtually the entire state into a single time zone should be a partisan issue.

Sincerely, Bill Starr
Columbus, Indiana
Bartholomew County
http://tinyurl.com/88nnw
Mon, 21 Nov 2005