Re:Time zone news
by ghaff on Thursday October 29, 2015 @01:18PM
(#10472644)
You're backwards. The problem with year-round daylight savings in Boston (which, personally, I'd prefer) is kids going to school in the dark in the winter. Boston's both relatively northernly and very far east in a timezone because eastern time wraps up the northeast-jutting coast of the US to avoid New England being in its own timezone. [Edit: It wouldn't be in its own timezone; it would be in Atlantic time, which is used in parts of Canada. But it would put Boston in a different timezone from NYC and other major east coast cities.]
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> kids going to school in the dark in the winter
Daylight Savings Time can’t fix that in most places either.
Where I live, right now (today), sun rises around 8am, and sets around 4pm.
Kids will go to school around 7:20, and come back home around 15h.
In mid december, it’s even worse – most people never see the sun during that time.
DST's not really all that useful at either latitudes where the day length is relatively uniform throughout the year nor at latitudes that vary between more light than you know what to do with and dark in morning and evening no matter what.
It's really primarily useful when you have enough light for long summer evenings and winter days that are short but are still long enough that it makes sense to fine-tune sunrise and sunset relative to normal work and school times.
We actually contemplated (in the state legislature) moving to Atlantic time in Maine a few years ago. I'm glad they didn't because we have enough business barriers as it is without adding that into the mix, but it might not be bad if all of New England did it together.