Single Indiana time zone again? { superseded 18 Jan 2006 }

THIS DRAFT IS SUPERSEDED BY "Letter to the editor: Why not a single time zone again?" OF 18 JANUARY 2006.

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Without reuniting Indiana into a single time zone, many see the switch to DST as an incomplete and hollow achievement. The shift of only a handful of counties by the DOT need not be the underwhelming anticlimax of this year's political drama. We have until about February 2 to encourage our legislators to pass a bill like SB 79 over to the other house of the legislature. This bill would petition the DOT to put all of Indiana back into a single time zone.

With a bill like this, the legislators could not only conclude the unfortunate era of Hoosier neighbors in different time zones, but also substantially reduce the likely confusion when companies outside the state deal with Hoosier businesses. Numerous comments at the DOT docket, as well as many who spoke at the hearings, express the fervent desire of many Hoosiers to see the entire state once again unified on a single time.

Unlike Indiana, which lies entirely within the natural boundaries of a single time zone, Ohio is split down the middle by the natural boundary (82½° longitude) between the eastern and central zones. Ohio residents long ago saw the benefit of shifting the boundary to their state border in order to be in a single zone. Indiana could also easily be reunified with a similar shift of the present boundary back to our border.

Ohio is 1½ times wider than Indiana and yet resides in a single zone. Alaska is 15 times wider than Indiana and gets along with only two zones. According to "about.com", in addition to Alaska and Indiana there are about 11 other states split across time zones. They all range from 2 to 5 times wider than Indiana -- more than 3 times wider on average.

Given the many benefits to shifting the line to our state border, I see no compelling argument against a relatively narrow state like ours being restored to a single zone, like all the other states of width comparable to ours.

If the legislature had deliberately undertaken to maximimize the odds of Indiana's remaining in two time zones, they could hardly have designed a more effective approach than encouraging the DOT to leave the decision-making with individual counties. A decentralized process is almost guaranteed to be incremental. We saw exactly this result last fall -- no county wanted to request a time zone change unless they are about one county or less away from the current boundary.

Of course it's not likely that that all 75 non-petitioning counties are happy with Indiana's being in two zones -- just that nobody wants to be the first to ask the DOT for the time zone they really want unless they're pretty confident at least some of their neighbors plan to as well.

About 36 counties lie one county or less from the present time boundary. It is telling that, of the 26 or so on eastern time, about 2/3 petitioned to join the ten counties already on central, but none of those already on central petitioned to go to eastern.

For several decades after our nation formally adopted time zones in 1918, Indiana residents enjoyed the benefits of a single statewide time zone. The only effective alternative to an incremental county-by-county approach to unifying Indiana's time requires courageous and visionary leadership by state government. With Indiana citizens encouraging such a proactive resolution by the General Assembly this month, we could likely enjoy a single time zone once again.