Indiana's a natural for Eastern DST? -- not!

As others have pointed out, eastern time is centered on 75 degrees (Philadelphia) and central on 90 degrees longitude (Peoria). The natural boundary is the average -- 82.5 degrees. Checking the atlas shows that this boundary runs down the middle of Ohio and down the eastern borders of Michigan and Kentucky.

It takes the sun about 45 minutes to travel from Philadelphia to Indianapolis, but only about 15 minutes to travel overhead from Indy to Peoria.

From a historical perspective, there is evidence that being on central time was not bad for Indiana business, and may even be better for business than eastern time.

By the state's own figures (pdf page 7 of 44), Indiana's per capita income was 106.4 percent of the national average in 1953 (when most or all of the state was on central time year-round, and had been for decades).

http://www.in.gov/iedc/pdfs/Strategic_Plan.pdf

By 2006 this figure had dropped to 91.4 percent. This is about four decades after beginning the grand experiment of having a big chunk of the state move from Chicago to New York time for the cooler portion of the year.

It's hard to avoid noticing that the state economy really seemed to be "hitting on all cylinders" when the whole state was on central time and things have really come apart since most of the state started to flirt with eastern time.

As far as when it gets dark this time of year, that's more a function of our latitude than our time zone. With only about 9 hours 25 minutes of sunlight on January 2, the average sunrise and sunset times for places at Indy's latitude around the world are about 7:21 am and 4:47 pm. Since we're not in the exact middle of a time zone, the closest we can get to these natural times is on central time, which would give Indy a sunrise of 7:06 am and sunset of 4:31 pm.

As far as whether daylight saving time really gives the benefits it is purported to, that's another bag of worms for another day.

Bill
Tue, 2 Jan 2007, 7:20 am EST


State's a natural for Eastern DST