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In Tuesday's Vote, California Opts for Year-Round Daylight Saving

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Re: In Tuesday's Vote, California Opts for Year-Round Daylight Saving

#61

Post by dragonwriter »

CalChris wrote: post #51
rrauenza wrote: post #16

This doesn't change anything right now -- it allows the California legislature to pick either PST or PDT: https://votersedge.org/en/ca/ballot/election/area/73/measure... The way it is now Federal law sets standard time zones for each area of the country. California and other western states are in the Pacific Standard time zone. Current law requires the time of each zone to move forward by one hour from early March to…

It passed 60-40. The legislature would be foolish to ignore the electorate's clear intent. CA has only a single timezone, the Pacific Timezone.

Prop 7 was submitted to voters by the legislature, since they couldn't do what they wanted without permission from the voters, because the law setting DST policy was from the voters, not the legislature.

Of course, federal action is still needed, too.

Re: In Tuesday's Vote, California Opts for Year-Round Daylight Saving

#62

Post by rtkwe »

Taniwha wrote: post #32
philwelch wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opposite. California is going to UTC-7 year-round. The East Coast varies between UTC-5 and UTC-4. California is effectively going to be in the exact same time zone as Arizona, which is in Mountain Standard Time and does not recognize DST. Honestly, we should just abolish the Pacific time zone and then abolish DST on the West Coast. Rename Mountain Standard Time to Western Standard Time.

the obvious follow on from that is to abolish timezones all together, all use UTS, and simply change the times we go to work to match local conditions

No that's just awful, now instead of having a defined timezone boundary we have a slow bleed between different areas and we have to look up to know what a businesses hours are if we're not close enough to follow the same customary time instead of just knowing what timezone they're in.

So now we're dealing with a patchwork of 'zones of similar customary times' as areas with similar solar times move towards a similar clock so businesses can coordinate and trade easily with local businesses. It'll be a mess so states will probably organize together to make things simpler and have a similar set of hours across the state. These pseudo-timezones will be slightly better and states around a similar longitude will naturally order into a similar set of customary times because their local solar times are roughly the same. Now we've got pretty much the EXACT same situation as the current timezones including a generalized offset from UTC so we gain nothing.

What exactly do you suppose we gain from abolishing timezones?

Re: In Tuesday's Vote, California Opts for Year-Round Daylight Saving

#63

Post by newnewpdro »

recursive wrote: post #47
newnewpdro wrote: post #35

The real problem with the time change is it happens over a single night. When you're actually living in nature, waking up with the sunrise, you will gradually wake up earlier or later as the seasons shift. If our time changed gradually on a more natural pace it would be a whole lot less disruptive and people wouldn't be losing daylight from their lives. We have the technology today to make that happen. If everyone's…

Under this system, either some minutes will be longer than others, or we'll have leap minutes every night. This sounds more complicated, not less. It might achieve the goal of having a sunrise at the same wall clock time every day, but I don't really see a purpose for that. Sunsets will still vary.

I made no claim of it being less complicated, and I am not aware of the general public's primary issue with the time changing being one of complexity.

If the clocks are automated, nobody really notices the gradual change.

My perception is the public's major complaint is the jarring disturbance to their lives an overnight +-1-hour change has.

Re: In Tuesday's Vote, California Opts for Year-Round Daylight Saving

#64

Post by dragonwriter »

intopieces wrote: post #25
taylodl wrote: post #11

So when the US East Coast springs forward 1 hour California is then going to be 4 hours behind? That's gonna make West Coast travel even worse.

Some clarification: California is currently not going to do anything in changing DST. This measure doesn't even propose making DST permanent or switching to PDT all the time, it just allows the legislature to talk about changing it.

Actually, it allows the Legislature to actually change it, provided the feds allow it. And it was submitted by the Legislature, which probably wouldn't seek permission if it didn't intend to use it.

Re: In Tuesday's Vote, California Opts for Year-Round Daylight Saving

#65

Post by echevil »

jcranmer wrote: post #22
echevil wrote: post #6

Grew up in a region without day light saving, I really don’t see the point of changing clocks twice every year. I’d be very glad to see it getting abandoned

The real kicker is snow: in the winter months, if you get snow, you really want as much sun in the morning as possible to aid snowmelt and other snow clearing steps. In the summer months, moving extra sunlight to the afternoon makes much more sense. DST is a compromise that gets you morning sun in winter and afternoon sun in summer.

What’s wrong with just getting up earlier, on your own terms? Or just stay on DST time zone forever?

Re: In Tuesday's Vote, California Opts for Year-Round Daylight Saving

#66

Post by babypuncher »

dragonwriter wrote: post #61
CalChris wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It passed 60-40. The legislature would be foolish to ignore the electorate's clear intent. CA has only a single timezone, the Pacific Timezone.

Prop 7 was submitted to voters by the legislature, since they couldn't do what they wanted without permission from the voters, because the law setting DST policy was from the voters, not the legislature. Of course, federal action is still needed, too.

Federal action is only needed if they choose to go with PDT year-round rather than PST.

Re: In Tuesday's Vote, California Opts for Year-Round Daylight Saving

#67

Post by LitFan »

rtkwe wrote: post #48
npunt wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree, sending kids to school in the dark is a pretty weak 'think of the children' argument. If we REALLY cared about children, we'd start school later as numerous studies show a later start is better for learning and health. See the CDC's guidelines for optimal school start times, which is 8:30am or later: https://www.cdc.gov/features/school-start-times/index.html

Then we start running into issues with the secondary/tertiary purpose of schools, daycare, which lets parents work normal 9-5 jobs more easily while having kids. If schools didn't start to 8:30-9 it'd be harder for parents to get to work.

Not to mention teachers not wanting to work until 5:30 every day. Unfortunately, school starts at the time it does only to the benefit of adults, and the detriment of students.

Re: In Tuesday's Vote, California Opts for Year-Round Daylight Saving

#68

Post by _ph_ »

singingboyo wrote: post #10

From [1], which is much better and more on-point, if still short: "Opponents of the proposition argue [...] the sun wouldn’t rise until 8 a.m. during some winter months, forcing children to walk to school or buses in darkness" Maybe school shouldn't start so early then? Starting at 8:30-9 would reduce a lot of that, though not all of it. Also, as a Canadian and Vancouverite... so what? Darkness is a fact of life, get…

What is the point of moving the time zone by 1 hour (keeping permanent DST instead of normal time) and then adjusting times, like school hours, to compensate for it? Couldn't one just go back to normal time instead?

Re: In Tuesday's Vote, California Opts for Year-Round Daylight Saving

#69

Post by bdamm »

vondur wrote: post #42
Impossible wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overall it would be better for the students and it fixes safety concerns, which I agree is a weak argument but 'for the children' is always a great political card to play. The issue is I don't think making the school day start later will ever get support from teachers, so it won't be considered for most school districts even if its better for the students.

Yes. Teachers unions would never agree to have to start later in the day.

Why?

Re: In Tuesday's Vote, California Opts for Year-Round Daylight Saving

#70

Post by vinay427 »

cwmma wrote: post #57

Why would they switch to PDT year round as opposed to just switching to MST ?

PDT and MST are the same time all year long, as far as I know, so there's no effective difference. I suppose this means that other places in Pacific time that have DST part of the year would be on the same labeled time zone as California part of the year for cultural and historical reasons.
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