Some Events Of Late-April (Indiana time zones)

I found this blog entry interesting for a couple of reasons. First was the "outsider's" perspective on Indiana time zones. Second his/her observations on Wabash College in Crawfordsville were interesting to me since Crawfordsville is less than ten miles north of the little Indiana town where my wife grew up.

A little more white space (paragraphs) would make it a little more to my liking.

White Hat News Group - Weight Watcher Values - Some Events Of Late-April

Our elected baby sitters - Jonetta Rose Barras

Jonetta Rose Barras hits the nail on the head with the following comments:

They're changing diapers and washing bottles in the D.C. Council chamber over at the John A. Wilson Building. Playpens are expected to arrive soon. Twelve of the city's 13 policymakers have morphed into old-fashion, but high-priced, nannies.

Claiming concern for District workers, lawmakers gave preliminary approval this week to a smoking ban in restaurants, bars and taverns. (All will be expected to go smoke-free by January 2007.) The ban comes after a two-year, well-funded battle and the introduction of multiple bills to two different council committees.

Legislators-cum-nannies assume that citizens in the District aren't intelligent or responsible enough to choose for themselves a dining or entertainment establishment that meets their own health standards. They also presume that workers, most of whom are over 18 years old, are incapable of determining when an environment is or isn't safe.

Smoking is a dangerous habit. It didn't take the U.S. surgeon general to provide that warning for me...

Studies have differed on the dangers of secondhand smoke. Statistics can always be manipulated. Whether those reports are true or not is not the issue. The District has more than 200 restaurants and bars - an ample supply - that prohibit smoking. There are numerous others that have significant portions of their establishment sectioned off for nonsmokers. In other words, thinking adults have a choice... Further, if the council is concerned about employment opportunities for those individuals who work in bars or restaurants where there is smoking, it could set up a job-counseling agency...

Washington Examiner: Columns

Letter to the editor: earliest sunset December 7

Today (December 7) happens to be the earliest sunset of the year in Indianapolis.

A common thread of objection to statewide central time for Indiana is that winter sunsets would be "too early".

After so many years effectively in the wrong time zone from October through April, I suspect that many of us in Indiana have become less aware of the typical winter sunset time at our latitude. The only way to get significantly more evening sunlight is to take it away from those who prefer the benefits of that scarce hour of sunlight in the winter mornings, e.g., for melting snow and ice off vehicles and roads, and burning off any morning fog.

I have shown Fort Wayne, South Bend, Indianapolis, and Terre Haute in the following table twice, to help compare their earliest sunset time with that of several other cities. I concluded that our sunset time is much more in line with comparable areas of the rest of the country on central time than it would be if we remained on eastern.

Before there were standard time zones, the local sunset time on December 7 for Indianapolis (and all points due east and west) was 4:35pm. Determining this median sunset time for our latitude really helped to open my eyes and calibrate me on what sunset time to reasonably expect in Indiana this time of year. Perhaps others will find it as helpful as I did.

With our one-hour-wide time zones, locations in the eastern half of the nearest time zone (like Chicago, Indianapolis, and New York) should experience their earliest sunset from 4:05 to 4:35pm. Conversely, sunset time in the western half of each time zone should range from 4:35 to 5:05pm. The following table confirms that this is exactly how it works out in various cities across the country, and confirms that central time provides a more equitable distribution of our scarce winter sunlight than eastern time would.

SUNSET ON DECEMBER 7
4:05pm, eastern boundary of each time zone
4:12pm, Boston MA
4:12pm, Fort Wayne (central time)
4:14pm, South Bend (central time)
4:20pm, Chicago IL
4:20pm, Indianapolis (central time)
4:26pm, Terre Haute (central time)
4:28pm, New York NY
4:31pm, Evansville IN (central time)
4:35pm, Denver CO
4:35pm, Philadelphia PA
4:35pm, Reno NV
4:40pm, St. Louis MO
4:45pm, Sacramento CA
4:46pm, Washington DC
4:54pm, Youngstown OH
5:05pm, western boundary of each time zone

5:12pm, Fort Wayne (eastern time)
5:14pm, South Bend (eastern time)
5:20pm, Indianapolis (eastern time)
5:26pm, Terre Haute (eastern time)

sun time matches clock time in Herndon

Having taken a very strong interest in time zones and clocks the last few months due to Indiana's changing time situation, I found it an interesting coincidence to discover that I had arrived at my hotel in Herndon, Virginia yesterday (December 5) on one of the only two days of the year when the sun happens to pass directly overhead here at noon (the other is September 28).

At 77.4 degrees longitude, Herndon is 2.4 degrees west of the middle of the eastern time zone (75 degrees). Thus, its local mean time is about ten minutes behind clock time. However, the correction due to the equation of time exactly cancels out the longitude correction on these two days.

The irony was not lost on me that the closest the clocks in Indianapolis will come to ever reading 12:00 when the sun is overhead if we are on eastern time is 12:28pm on November 23. Worst case falls on July 26, when our clocks will read 1:51pm as the sun passes overhead in 2006.

If we were on central time, the clocks would read approximately 12:00 noon with the sun overhead in Indianapolis on February 11.

Frugal Hoosiers: Livin' life by the clock

My reply to the following post:

I don't think it's a secret that there are also a number of Republicans, including me (elected precinct committeeman), who want to see it kept alive just long enough to get at least 95 percent of Indiana's counties into the central zone, where we have been for 7 out of every 12 months the past several decades.

Central time would put Indianapolis clocks within 15 minutes of local mean time five months of the year, give us 45 minutes of extra evening daylight the other seven months (as it has been doing). Eastern would put our clocks a whopping 105 minutes off local time for those same seven months, which a lot of Hoosiers just think is too much.

Frugal Hoosiers: Livin' life by the clock

Masson's Blog: Rep. Torr's letter to the USDOT

Doug makes an excellent point:

By hiding the ball with respect to Eastern Daylight Time, an impression of illegitimacy has been created. Had the legislation specified Daylight Saving Time and designated a preferred time line, then there wouldn't be a great deal to argue about. As Rep. Torr suggests, if the time zone debate been conducted explicitly, it may have failed. True. But too bad. Honorable failure is more respectable than sneaky success. As it is, Rep. Torr's legislation has created a roiling time zone mess. If the Republicans lose seats -- and possibly the House of Representatives over this -- the loss will be based in large part over their failure to be forthright about the time zone issue.

Masson's Blog: Rep. Torr's letter to the USDOT

Evansville CourierPress: Daniels not in favor of Central vs. Eastern time referendum

The Evansville Courier & Press has an article today titled "Daniels not in favor of Central vs. Eastern time referendum".

http://www.courierpress.com/ecp/news/article/0,1626,ECP_734_4285801,00.html

Bob Plymire of Evansville has an extensive follow-up comment.

http://www.haloscan.com/comments/courier/03a01time12/

I think the words of a very wise man may apply to Mr. Plymire's comments.

"The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him."

I won't try to comment on everything he wrote. In my opinion, much of it falls into the categories of conjecture and personal preference, including which time zone might better provide for the safety of public school children, which might be better for business, for lowering crime, for saving energy, etc.

I agree with Mr. Plymire that a statewide referendum should be unbiased, perhaps asking for a vote between putting the entire state on central, the entire state on eastern, or just leaving it however the DOT rules next month.

Mr. Plymire writes, "... you usually find those people really don't understand what the differnece [sic] between central and eastern time means... WEll, logicly [sic], if you were to look at a map of time zones, they really had to stretch the time zones to get Indiana to be in the central time zone to begin with. Take a look at a time zone map. If you were to compare it to a worldwide map, Indiana is well withing [sic] the eastern time zone."

First, I'm not sure what map he is looking at, but the U.S. Code defines the time zone locations and names. Title 15, Chapter 6, Subchapter IX, Sections 261 and 264 read, "the standard time of the first zone shall be based on the mean solar time of the sixtieth degree of longitude west from Greenwich; that of the second zone on the seventy-fifth degree; that of the third zone on the ninetieth degree... The standard time of the first zone shall be known and designated as Atlantic standard time; that of the second zone shall be known and designated as eastern standard time; that of the third zone shall be known and designated as central standard time."

http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/260.html

From this section of federal law, it is pretty obvious that the middle of the eastern zone runs near Philadelphia. The middle of central is near Peoria or St. Louis. The mid-point between the two (82.5 degrees longitude) bisects Ohio around Mansfield. When I check my Rand McNally Road Atlas, I come to the opposite conclusion from Mr. Plymire. The natural time zone boundary runs very near the eastern borders of Michigan and Kentucky. Contrary to Bob's assertion, I have to conclude that where the real stretch came was getting all of Ohio, most of Michigan, and half of Kentucky into the eastern zone.

I present these facts for the enlightenment of those who wish to try to minimize the emotion in this discussion.

Second, I point out that not all studies of the relationship between health and sunlight conclude that more sunlight at the end of the day is better.

For example, a study titled "Circadian Rhythm Sleep Disorders" by Dr. Daniel R. Wagner finds, "Exposure to light in the morning is an important and probably a crucial element in the treatment of DSPS [delayed sleep phase syndrome]... [and] Avoidance of bright light (>500 lux) from the late afternoon through the evening is advisable."

http://www.treatment-options.com/article.cfm?PubID=NE01-4-1-03&type=Article

Lee Siegel and Stephanie Watson, in an article for the Genetic Science Learning Center at the University of Utah, write, "Some research indicates light therapy is more effective if it is synchronized with a patient's internal clock, which is why some patients are treated with exposure to bright light early in the morning."

http://gslc.genetics.utah.edu/features/clockgenes/

"A 1998 clinical trial showed that morning light treatment was generally more effective than evening light treatment (Terman et.al.1998) although evening treatment was still more effective than placebo."

http://www.bpkids.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=7263

Yet another article says, "In those cases where people cannot fall asleep at night and are unable to get out of bed in the morning, exposing them to bright light at the time they should be awakening gradually resets the sleep pattern toward a more normal range. The theory for this is that bright light exposure in the morning shuts off the production of melatonin early and initiates the activity phase of our circadian rhythm cycle."

http://shop.store.yahoo.com/ampr/lightsleep.html

Sincerely, Bill Starr
http://tinyurl.com/88nnw
Columbus, Indiana (Bartholomew County)
Sat, 3 Dec 2005

Evansville CourierPress: Daniels not in favor of Central vs. Eastern time referendum

Steve Heim: House Prayer

I just added my comments on the ruling about sectarian prayer in the Indiana Statehouse to Steve Heim's blog.

Steve Heim: House Prayer

Canossa: Ken Grant on Gov. Mitch Daniels

Ken Grant writes:

Gov. Mitch Daniels (governor of Indianapolis) decided a number of months ago to wade into the murky time zone reshuffling waters by asking the counties to finally decide just which time zone that they wanted to be in...

Of course, he was rather specific about telling the counties to make up their own minds, and petition the Department of Transportation accordingly...

Well, St. Joseph County, in its somewhat flawed wisdom, decided that they wanted to move to the Central time zone...

Not good enough for the governor of Indianapolis. Nope, our man Mitch decided that the county chose poorly, and has now written to the DOT to encourage them to turn down St. Joseph County's petition to move to Central time. Yes, indeed, the man who triggered the whole bit of nonsense has suddenly realized that some folks actually took him seriously regarding the determination of the time zone.

Can't have that. No sir. Not at all. Gov. Daniels simply could not have folks make their own decisions on an issue wherein he told them to make their own decisions...

Canossa: Political Idiot of the Day - Gov. Mitch Daniels

Letter to the editor 1 Dec 2005, local time vs clock time

I recently had an e-mail exchange with an Indiana state representatives who strongly favors Eastern time. He wonders why so many people have such a strong preference for having their clocks somewhere near noon when the sun is overhead. This preference seems to be particularly strong among Indiana residents who favor Central time.

We could adjust to just about any time zone if there were some compelling reason to do so. Our whole country could set their clocks to local mean time (aka local time) of Los Angeles, or New York City, or (splitting the difference) even Sioux City, Iowa. For that matter, the whole world could decide to use Greenwich Mean Time.

Most people would figure out a schedule to sleep when it's dark, be awake when it's light, eat breakfast somewhere near sunrise, supper somewhere near sunset, and lunch somewhere in the middle, regardless of what the clocks may say.

There are some places in the world that have actually learned to tolerate having their clocks significantly different from local time like this -- Western China and parts of Alaska, for example.

While I don't have an airtight explanation why so many prefer having their clocks set close to local time, I do see a couple of pieces of evidence that indicate pretty strongly that it is so.

First, when the time zones were instituted in the 1880's, why did they choose one-hour-wide zones? Fewer wider zones might have been even more convenient for commerce. I surmise it was at least partly because many people are willing to set their clocks up to 30 minutes faster or slower than local time for the sake of convenience of commerce, but not a whole lot more. I elaborated on this thought further in my DOT docket comments of 20 November 2005 (tinyurl.com/88nnw).

Second, when I look up "noon" in the Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, it says "midday; twelve o'clock in the daytime", indicating that midday and noon are strongly associated. The American Heritage Dictionary reinforces this association with "the time or point in the sun's path at which the sun is on the local meridian; the highest point". The further our clocks deviate from local time, the weaker these traditional associations become, and the more compelling a justification is required.

Granted, dictionary definitions may offer an overly simplistic explanation, but they give substantial empirical evidence of just how deeply ingrained these conventions are in our collective cultural psyche. Anybody who proposes that it's worthwhile to deviate significantly from these norms has a pretty uphill battle cut out for them, as is readily observed in Indiana now.

Making this more specific to Indiana, when Indianapolis last observed Central Standard Time, the clocks were only 15 minutes behind local time (our eastern and western borders are only about 5 minutes different from Indy). When we observed year-round Eastern Standard Time (aka Central Daylight Time), the clocks were only 45 minutes ahead of local time. Although exceeding the 30-minute threshold, this seemed a reasonable compromise to many Hoosiers -- 45 minutes or so of morning sunlight shifted to the evening year-round.

If we observe Eastern Daylight Time in 2006 and 2007, the clocks in Indy will be 105 minutes ahead of local time (110 in Terre Haute) for 7 and 8 months of the year.

This apparently sounds like a near-unequivocal benefit to those who support Eastern time, but, to those who support Central, having the clock so skewed from local time doesn't sound that great at all. Absent a statewide referendum, it's just anybody's educated guess, at best, which view predominates among Hoosiers.

Perhaps this helps to explain why the northwest and southwest counties seem largely content to remain on Central time, why so many other counties have petitioned to join them, and why so many Hoosiers in the rest of the state (based on docket comments and hearing reports) are clamoring for their elected legislators and governor to seize the opportunity in the January 2006 legislative session to petition the DOT to reunite at least 95 percent of Indiana's counties in the Central time zone.

cc: Indiana legislators, Governor Daniels, Mayor Stephen Luecke

My DOT post of 30 Nov 2005 supporting Central time for Indiana

PETITION FAVORING CENTRAL TIME (sun overhead near noon)
=======================================================
I've had a little e-mail exchange with one of the Indiana state representatives who strongly favors eastern time. He wondered why people seem to have such a preference for having their clocks somewhere near noon when the sun is overhead, at least during the shorter winter days. I submitted the following thoughts on this apparent phenomenon, which seems to be particularly strong among those Indiana residents who favor Central time.

Obviously we could adjust to about anything if there were some compelling reason to do so. There's no reason why our whole country couldn't set their clocks to the local mean time of Los Angeles, or New York City, or (splitting the difference) even Sioux City, Iowa. For that matter, the whole world could decide to use Greenwich Mean Time.

Everyone would figure out what time their clock reads in order to sleep when it's dark, be awake when it's light, eat breakfast somewhere near sunrise, supper somewhere near sunset, and lunch somewhere in the middle.

There are even some places in the world that have actually learned to tolerate having their clock time quite a bit different from local time. Western China and parts of Alaska are a couple that come right to mind.

While I'm not sure I can give an objective explanation why most people seem to prefer having their clocks set pretty close to their local mean time, I do see a couple of pieces of evidence that indicate pretty strongly to me that it is so.

First, when the time zones were first conceived and set up, why did the settle on 24 one-hour zones? Fewer wider zones might have been just as, or even more, convenient. I conclude it was at least in part because most people at the time, and I believe probably still today, are willing to set their clocks up to 30 minutes or so faster or slower than their local time for the sake of convenience of commerce, but not a whole lot more. I elaborated on this thought further in the following DOT post.

http://bill-starr.blogspot.com/2005/11/my-dot-post-of-20-nov-2005-supporting.html

Second, when I look up "noon" in my big Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, the first definition is "midday" and the second definition is "twelve o'clock in the daytime". When I look up "noonhour" the definitions are "the hour between 12 noon and 1 p.m." and "lunchtime". When I look up "midday", it says "the middle of the day; noon or the time centering around noon".

Granted, that is somewhat simplistic, but I still think it also gives some pretty strong empirical evidence of just how deeply ingrained these conventions are in our collective cultural psyche. Anybody who decides it's worthwhile to push away from those definitions has a pretty uphill battle cut out for them, as is readily observed in Indiana now.

Masson's Blog: Governor Daniels breaks the law

Doug Masson writes:

*** BEGIN QUOTE ***

Governor Daniels is now officially in violation of Ind. Code 1-1-8.1-3 which states:

Sec. 3. The state supports the county executive of any county that seeks to change the time zone in which the county is located under the procedures established by federal law.

The St. Joseph County Commissioners [are] seeking, under the procedures established by federal law, to change the time zone in which St. Joseph County is located. That means the state has to support them in their efforts, right? Well, apparently only if you're of the opinion that Governor Daniels is obliged to obey the law.

Governor Daniels has submitted a letter to the U.S. Dept. of Transportation opposing the St. Joseph County Commissioners' efforts to change time zones. In other words, he is doing exactly the opposite of what the law requires him to do...

Nevermind that he makes bogus statements about the "clear preference" of Hoosiers generally to remain in the Eastern Zone and of Elkhart County residents specifically. The statements are bogus because no mechanism has been made available to most Hoosiers to express their preference. In fact, the Republican leadership has made clear its opposition to a referendum that would put this "clear preference" to the test. Nevermind that he continues his recent insistence that time zones are a "local matter." Nevermind that he forgets his campaign preference for statewide Central Time. Nevermind that he sat on his hands until the eleventh hour before offering an opinion to the public and to the USDOT.

Forget all that stuff for now. He is breaking the law. The Daylight Saving Time bill added a section to the Indiana Code that specifically required the state to support a county executive's efforts to switch time zones. Instead of supporting the St. Joseph County Commissioners, as the law requires, Mitch Daniels is opposing their efforts...

He wasn't ignorant of that provision of the law. His spokesperson was recently asked about it, and offered up an explanation of that provision with which only an illiterate could agree, alleging that the provision required support only of the process not the county executive seeking to change time zones.

He wasn't required to offer his opinion to the USDOT. He could have remained silent and presumably not run afoul of the law. Instead, he went out of his way to violate IC 1-1-8.1-3. Just outrageous. If I were the St. Joseph County Commissioners, I'd be headed to court to seek an injunction of the whole Daylight Saving Time law, delaying its implementation until such time as the Governor corrects his violation or the legislature repeals IC 1-1-8.1-3.

*** END QUOTE ***

Masson's Blog: Governor Daniels breaks the law

PETITION FAVORING CENTRAL TIME (short winter days)

Title: Time Zone Boundaries in the State of Indiana
Docket: OST-2005-22114-3843 (as corrected)
RIN 2105-AD53
FR Refence Number: 70 FR 48460

To: Joanne Petrie
via "http://dms.dot.gov/submit/"
Office of the General Counsel (C-50)
400 7TH ST SW
WASHINGTON DC 20590-0001

PETITION FAVORING CENTRAL TIME (short winter days)
==================================================
I was reading Tony O'Neill's November 25 comment to the DOT docket (OST-2005-22114-3559). Tony lives in Indianapolis. As an objection to Central time, Tony says that if he lives in a state where the sun sets at 4pm, he is "out of here". Well, even on Central time, the sun won't set that early in Indianapolis, so this is a bit of a "straw man" argument, but let's take a closer look at this objection anyway, because there are quite a few who seem to feel this way.

I maintain that Tony's issue has more to do with reasonable expectations for living on the 40th parallel than it does with Indiana's time zone.

The shortest day of the year north of the equator is December 21 (winter solstice). At 40 degrees latitude, we only get about 9 hours 20 minutes of daylight. No matter where you live around the world at that latitude, you will only have about 4 hours 40 minutes before midday and the same after. So at the center of any time zone, the sun rises approximately 7:20am and sets approximately 4:40pm. For those east of the nearest center, like Indiana is, sunrise and sunset times are up to 30 minutes earlier. For those to the west, they are up to 30 minutes later.

Since Indianapolis is only about four degrees east of the nearest time zone center, our actual sunrise and sunset times should be about 15 minutes earlier than those at the center. This would be about 7:05am and 4:25pm (ignoring the correction for the equation of time).

It turns out that the earliest sunrise in Indy on Central time is 4:20pm (including the equation of time correction), which matches the approximate calculation very closely.

So, for all of us who choose to live near Indianapolis (or anywhere due east or west of it), physical reality just dictates that we're going to have less than ten hours of daylight from mid-November through late January -- with the attendant winter sunrise and sunset times approximately five hours or less before and after midday.

If Tony O'Neill, or anyone else, comes to realize that they really want more daylight than this in the winter, setting the clock to eastern time doesn't really address the root problem. It only robs an hour from Peter (who prefers to have 4.9 hours of early-January morning sun instead of 3.9) to pay Paul (who wants to stretch his 4.3 hours of early-December evening sun to 5.3).

On Central time, we would have about 0.6 hours more mid-winter sun in the morning than in the evening. On Eastern, we would have about 1.4 hours more sun in the evening than in the morning. Central helps keep the scale a little closer to the center, more equitably dividing our scant hours of winter daylight between those who prefer it in the morning and those who prefer it in the evening.

So for Tony O'Neill, moving to a more southerly state (closer to the equator) is the only way to provide a true increase in winter daylight hours, with corresponding earlier winter sunrises and later sunsets than we have in Indiana.

Sincerely, Bill Starr
1421 N 475 E
COLUMBUS IN 47203-9380
Bartholomew County resident
http://tinyurl.com/88nnw
Tue, 29 Nov 2005

cc: letter to the editor, Indiana legislators, Governor Daniels

Ref: http://dms.dot.gov/search/document.cfm?documentid=374636&docketid=22114
Ref: http://dms.dot.gov/search/document.cfm?documentid=375009&docketid=22114

Masson's Blog: Indy Star: We got what we want, could the rest of you please shut up now?

Excellent post by Doug.

Masson's Blog: Indy Star: We got what we want, could the rest of you please shut up now?

Clock has expired for DST replays | IndyStar.com

Terre Haute TribStar.com :: Daniels leads clumsy DST dance

The editors of the Terre Haute Tribune-Star write:

"In reality, however, the governor's biggest first-year fiasco is one entirely of his own making. It is he who decided Indiana had a problem with its clocks and pushed hard to get daylight-saving time adopted by the Legislature...

"Through underhanded political means and last-minute shenanigans by members of his own party in the Indiana House, Daniels managed to “solve” a problem that really did not exist...

"The governor himself is likely to feel enormous heat on the issue next year during mid-term elections. If his GOP loses control of the House, which it only holds by four seats, he may have only himself and his DST policy to blame. Hoosiers in these parts are ticked off about DST and may decide to express their disgust with the governor at the polls next November...

"What's important is that we reach consensus and stick with it. And because Indianapolis is our capital city and has such a significant influence on Hoosier commerce, the rest of the state would be wise to follow its lead.

"Mitch Daniels may be the guy who screwed this up. But we don't have to make things worse."

*****
While I disagree with their recommendation that the state should follow Indianapolis on the time zone, I do agree that the whole state should be in a single time zone.

For many reasons I have already expressed elsewhere, I believe Indiana should lie entirely in the Central zone.

If Indiana were a wide state and bisected by a time zone boundary, as Ohio is, I might agree that it makes sense for Indiana to be split into two time zones. But east-to-west, we only extend across 3.25 degrees longitude and we fit well within the eastern half of the 15-degree Central standard time zone centered on St. Louis (90 degrees longitude).


Terre Haute, Indiana News :: TribStar.com :: Daniels leads clumsy DST dance

Unite Indiana on a single time zone

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


*****
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

Indiana required to support petitioning commissioners

To: "Letter to the Editor"

Doug Masson in his blog articles of November 13 and 15, and Martin DeAgostino in the November 15 South Bend Tribune, reminded me of the easily-overlooked first sentence in Senate Enrolled Act 127 (which Governor Daniels signed into law on May 13, giving Indiana Daylight Saving Time starting April 2006).

This sentence declares the will of the legislature that "the state supports the county executive of any county that seeks to change the time zone in which the county is located..."

As with all other Indiana laws, the governor is bound by our state constitution to take care that it is faithfully executed.

Based on the news reports from the first three of the four DOT hearings in Indiana on the time zones this week, there are obviously quite a few other citizens of Indiana who, like me, favor returning the entire state to its former and natural place in the Central time zone. As the DOT public input process continues, I plan to keep an eye on the governor's faithfulness in executing this statute.

And just in case any question might arise about the definition of the word "supports", my American Heritage Dictionary (Second College Edition) defines it in this context as:

"support: 7. To aid the cause of by approving, favoring, or advocating"

Of course, the legislature could choose to amend or revoke this statute in a future session. Until and unless that occurs, I plan to make the clear meaning of this sentence my measure in gauging how well Governor Daniels supports the commissioners of each of the counties who are petitioning the DOT to be on Central time, obviously including St. Joseph County, and I urge others to do so as well.

Sincerely, Bill Starr
Bartholomew County resident
http://tinyurl.com/88nnw
Sun, 20 Nov 2005

Ref: http://www.masson.us/blog/archives/2005/11/sb_127_requires.html
Ref: http://www.masson.us/blog/archives/2005/11/support_through.html
Ref: http://www.southbendtribune.com/stories/2005/11/15/local.20051115-sbt-LOCL-B1-Law_complicates.sto

cc: Governor Daniels, State Representative Luke Messer, State Senator Robert Garton
cc: St. Joseph County Commissioners

My DOT post of 20 Nov 2005 supporting Central time for Indiana

Title: Time Zone Boundaries in the State of Indiana
Docket: OST-2005-22114
RIN 2105-AD53
FR Refence Number: 70 FR 48460

To: Joanne Petrie
via "http://dms.dot.gov/submit/"
Office of the General Counsel (C-50)
400 7TH ST SW
WASHINGTON DC 20590-0001

PETITION FAVORING CENTRAL TIME (time zone width implications)
The nominal width of each of the 24 standard time zones is 15 degrees. This convention was adopted at the International Meridian Conference in Washington, DC in October 1884 (http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/info/conference.htm). Based on the initial meridian being at Greenwich, the nominal boundary between the Eastern and Central zones falls about midway east-to-west across Ohio, and down the eastern borders of Michigan and Kentucky. It's pretty obvious which Indiana border lies closer to that. Yes, there would be some pain at one border or the other if our whole state were on a single time zone, but there's clearly more to the choice than just flipping a coin.

The largely unstated implication of 24 one-hour time zones is that most people are willing to tolerate setting their clocks to a standard time that differs a maximum of +/- 30 minutes from their Local Mean Time (LMT), for the convenience of commerce (mainly the railroads in 1884).

If most people were willing to tolerate a 30-to-60-minute difference between their local time and their clock time, then 12 two-hour standard zones would have worked just as well. Continuing the thought, if willing to tolerate a 60-to-90-minute deviation, then 8 three-hour zones would have worked out fine. Likewise, if most people were willing to tolerate a 90-to-120-minute offset between local and clock time, then 6 four-hour zones would have been acceptable.

But, the fact that we got 24 one-hour zones implies to me that the consensus then was that a deviation of more than 30 minutes was unacceptable to the average person. I think this largely still applies today, which is at least partly why we see all of the grassroots support for Central time, now that we'll be observing Daylight Time. We were effectively already on Central time from April through October anyway.

Now let's look at the deviation between local time and clock time for Indiana under the two options for a single time zone for the entire state. On Central time, the offset between local time and clock time is only ten minutes for Terre Haute and 20 minutes for Richmond, both well under the 30-minute standard for a system of 24 one-hour zones.

On Eastern time, the offset between clock time and local time for Terre Haute is 50 minutes in the winter. During the 7 or 8 months of Daylight Saving Time, the offset between local time and clock time for Terre Haute is 110 minutes. If everyone in the continental U.S. were willing to tolerate having their clocks off by 110 minutes from their local time, we could have a single time zone from Maine to California, with everyone's clock set to the local time for Sioux City, Iowa.

Can you imagine the howls from Los Angeles and New York City with a system like that? And yet, both cities would have their clocks set only about +/- 90 minutes from their own local time, less than Terre Haute is being asked to put up with for over half the year, beginning April 2006, if most of Indiana remains on Eastern time.

Sincerely, Bill Starr
Bartholomew County resident
http://tinyurl.com/88nnw
Sun, 20 Nov 2005

Masson's Blog: Jasper Time Zone Hearings

There's an interesting thread of discussion on Indiana's time zone hearings on Doug's blog, including a few comments of my own.

Masson's Blog: Jasper Time Zone Hearings

My petition for Central time to Bartholomew County commissioners, 15 Aug 2005

The three commissioners of Bartholomew County, Indiana held a hearing for public comment on whether to request a hearing from the U.S. Department of Transportation for a possible change to the Central time zone. The hearing was held on Monday, 15 August 2005. The commissioners voted to stay in whichever time zone Indianapolis chooses, but stopped short of making any recommendation to Marion County of which zone they might prefer.

I realized that I had not posted the comments which I presented in my testimony at this hearing. They follow below.

*****

Thank you for scheduling this opportunity for Bartholomew County residents to express our time zone preference to you.

Now that the legislature and governor have passed the bill putting Indiana on daylight saving time, I prefer that as much of Indiana as possible observe Central time rather than Eastern.

The primary reason for my preference is based on our longitude and the natural time zone boundaries. The natural time zone boundaries are centered on even multiples of 15 degrees longitude around the globe, so that the clocks in every zone read approximately 12:00 when the sun passes overhead at noon. This natural Eastern zone is centered on 75 degrees and the Central zone is centered on 90, with the natural boundary between the two at 82.5 degrees. Based on our longitude, the whole state of Indiana, as well as half of Ohio and virtually all of Michigan and Kentucky fall within the natural boundaries of the Central time zone.

If Indiana remains in the Eastern zone, I understand that we would be the only state in the U.S. that lies completely within the mathematical boundaries of one time zone (Central) and yet observes a different time zone.

Normally, when a community is observing standard time in the winter, the sun would pass overhead within one half hour of 12:00 and when observing daylight saving time in the summer, the sun would pass overhead within one half hour of 1:00. If we are on Central time, this will be the case, but if we are Eastern, the sun will not be overhead until 1:50pm in the afternoon -- giving us effectively double daylight saving time. This would give us a sunset of 9:15pm in late June, with dusk not falling until 9:45pm or so. Conversely for portions of each month from October through January, on Eastern time the sun would not rise until after 8am, based on the expanded Daylight Saving Time period approved by Congress to begin in 2007.

Since Indiana lies well within the longitude range for Central time, we have effectively been observing Central daylight saving time year-round for the past several decades.

The argument may be made that Indiana borders more states that are in the ETZ than the CTZ. This assumption is only partially correct. Michigan, Ohio and part of Kentucky are in the ETZ. Illinois and the western part of Kentucky are in the CTZ. The border distance with states in the ETZ is approximately 400 miles and the CTZ is approximately 390 miles. A difference of only ten miles makes this argument nearly pointless. And, as I pointed out earlier, even those parts of Michigan, Ohio, and Kentucky that currently observe eastern time where they border us actually fall within the Central time zone according to their longitude.

Another argument I have heard for Eastern time is that Indiana's time should match that of Washington, D.C., since that is where our legislators work. I don't give this argument much weight. Carried to its logical conclusion, our whole country would be on Eastern time, regardless of how much sense that made to the people of California, Alaska, or Hawaii. This is exactly the situation in Communist China, whose government imposes a single time on the whole country, although the country would fall into five time zones if they followed the natural lines of longitude.

Apparently the Department of Transportation does not give much weight to the common-sense arguments based on longitude, so let us switch to the business rationale for Central time.

The primary selling point that Governor Daniels made for Indiana's switch to daylight saving time was to put Indiana clocks in sync year-round with most of the rest of the United States. From this perspective, either Eastern or Central time would be fine -- we would still change our clocks with the rest of the country twice per year, and always be the same number of hours different from just about anywhere else in the U.S.

And the rest of the country is already accustomed to dealing with Indiana businesses on both Central and Eastern time for about six months of each year, so neither should require more of an adjustment for our business partners than the other.

One advantage to being on Central time year-round is that it would put all Indiana businesses at most two hours away from all our customers and suppliers in the continental U.S., rather than being up to three hours different from the rest of the country on Eastern time. This might serve to expand opportunities for business with those on the west coast, without harming our relations with those on the east coast, who are already accustomed to being one hour ahead of us half the year anyway.

Another argument for Central time is to align ourself most closely with the population center of the country. The mean center of population of the United States is in Missouri, and moving westward with every census.

If we change to Central time, we will continue to enjoy the same additional sunlight in the summer evenings -- about 1.5 hours more evening sun than morning sun each day on average, while gaining one hour additional morning sunlight during most of the school year.

If we stay on Eastern time next summer, our clocks will read between 1:40 and 1:50pm at local noon during this period, giving us about 3.5 hours more evening daylight than morning daylight per day on the average. Personally I would rather have more light in the winter mornings, without losing any of the abundance of summer evening light we already enjoy.