Abstract
Twice a year debates erupt across the continental United States: should we keep Daylight Savings Time or leave it behind forever? The only preference with widespread agreement is against changing clocks, one way or the other. Perhaps all of the participants in this perennial argument have a common opponent: not each other, but the time zone lines as they are currently drawn.
Keeping Daylight Savings year-round would bring unreasonably late sunrises in Detroit and other cities in the Northwest corners of our current time zones, creating morning traffic hazards for pedestrians. But Standard Time brings winter sunsets before 5 p.m. across the time zones’ eastern edges, with equally dangerous results.
In this perspectives brief, author Rebecca Ray offers a map that aims to fix both of these problems. It draws on earlier work including cartographer Andy Woodruff’s “Daylight Savings Time Gripe Assistant Tool,” which invites users to explore schedules that would best fit their preferences for sunrise and sunset times. It also draws on maps of metropolitan areas and tribal lands, to keep them unified and possibly solve current intra-state complications in the process. The map is presented as a starting point for discussion toward finding a schedule that can work for everyone year-round.
Department
Carsey School of Public Policy
Publication Date
Spring 4-7-2022
Series
Perspectives Brief
Publisher
Durham, N.H. : Carsey School of Public Policy, University of New Hampshire
Document Type
Article
Recommended Citation
Ray, Rebecca, ""Daylight Maximizing" Time for All" (2022). The Carsey School of Public Policy at the Scholars' Repository. 447.
https://scholars.unh.edu/carsey/447
Rights
Copyright 2022. Carsey School of Public Policy. These materials may be used for the purposes of research, teaching, and private study. For all other uses, contact the copyright holder.
DOI
https://dx.doi.org/10.34051/p/2022.07