Pending Permanent Daylight Savings Time - Good or Bad For Arizona? (elementary schools, vs)

[davdaven]

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

Sadly, I note that Congress can't solve a damned thing when it comes to real issues, so they play around the edges, thump their chests and break their arms patting themselves on the back for "solving" nothing burgers like the Great Daylight Savings Time Threat. Good grief.

EDIT to add more:

Sleep experts want to end DST but want Standard Time to be the norm. Excerpts: "Leave it to the wealthy idiotic senators who design a permanent time system around their golf outings disregarding public health and the safety of our children. Sleep experts say Senate has it wrong: Standard time, not daylight saving, should be permanent. . . .

The Daily Mail has this to say: Excerpts: "The dark side of permanent daylight savings time: How the Senate bill eliminating the changing of the clocks may make Americans sicker, fatter and more depressed,...."

I recently read that over 2/3 of Americans support the end of clock changes. I think that's pretty definitive. Glad to see the Senate finally take up something that should have been addressed years ago.

These "sleep experts" sound like the kind of people who get up at 6 AM of their own free will. Too much of society is designed around these folks, and I have a hard time caring about their cries of an extra hour of darkness in the morning. It's always dark an extra hour for me because I'm looking at the back of my eyelids for that hour. Such is life.

The San Francisco Chronicle published a chart outlining the time change over the course of a year, and it sounds great to me. Sunrise is still before I usually wake up on the darkest day of the year. If you compare Salt Lake City to Phoenix, the sunrise/sunset time difference is about 20 minutes at most. That's really not a big deal at all. If it's truly such an issue for Arizona folks, then go ahead and switch from MST to PDT instead of MDT. As for the folks far up north in Maine or whatever, there's no win-win situation for them in the winter anyway.

[citizensadvocate]

Originally Posted by hikernut

I'd prefer AZ being on Mountain Daylight time. That would give an extra hour in the morning before the sun rises, so I could walk our dogs in the summer at 6am instead of 5am.

One of the big downsides, however, is kids going to school in darkness in the winter. The winter sunrise here would be roughly 8:30am. As a child growing up in the midwest, I recall one time when daylight savings time was extended throughout the year. That January it was dark... I mean really, really dark... when we were waiting to get on the school bus.

One way is to reclassify Arizona to Pacific Daylight time which means permanently that time.

Or go with permanent Mountain Daylight time but start schools later. I heard schools are starting too early or before 8am in many districts around the country starting schools later is better for learning anyways. I heard one reason AZ was anti Summer Time was drive in theatres but I be curious why they cannot start later.

[Hschlick84]

Originally Posted by citizensadvocate

One way is to reclassify Arizona to Pacific Daylight time which means permanently that time.

Or go with permanent Mountain Daylight time but start schools later. I heard schools are starting too early or before 8am in many districts around the country starting schools later is better for learning anyways. I heard one reason AZ was anti Summer Time was drive in theatres but I be curious why they cannot start later.

Move to Mountain Daylight Time permanently and start schools later is the best option. Makes no logical sense to put AZ in PDT while being directly south of Utah which is 1 hour ahead.

[Ex New Yorker]

Originally Posted by Hschlick84

Move to Mountain Daylight Time permanently and start schools later is the best option. Makes no logical sense to put AZ in PDT while being directly south of Utah which is 1 hour ahead.

Yeah, that does make sense!

[asufan]

Originally Posted by Hschlick84

Move to Mountain Daylight Time permanently and start schools later is the best option. Makes no logical sense to put AZ in PDT while being directly south of Utah which is 1 hour ahead.

It actually does make sense to go to Pacific time if they move their clocks back. Again, junior high kids in my area get off the bus at 4:45, sunset would be 4:30 in the middle of Winter instead of 5:30.

The ONLY logical sense is for us to not touch our clocks at all.

[citizensadvocate]

Interesting Arizona is weird that its on Pacific time Between March and November and Mountain time Between November and March. It really causes confusion especially for border residents like Laughlin, NV Bullhead city, AZ residents. As well as Needles and Blythe, CA. Either its on same time or an hour ahead just crossing a bridge depending on time of year. Why not either stay on pacific or Mountain. Or have the eastern part of the state east of Navajo border(Which already following MDT during summer months) on Mountain and west of that border on Pacific. Very few people would be on the mountain side. Its not uncommon for timezones to cut within states and it won't affect too many people in Arizona. Now the question is whether the 17 corridor where most of the action in Arizona is want to go Pacific or Mountain time. This region include the Phoenix Metro area, Prescott, Sedona, Flagstaff, and Grand Canyon National Park. I would guess Tucson would prefer to stay the same as Phoenix.

If the line needs to be drawn it seem to make best sense if either start Mountain time at Colorado city, AZ(keeping them aligned with their Utah neighbors). Which happens to be just west of Grand Canyon National Park, Prescott and western edge of Phoenix metro & Organ & Pipe Cactus National Monument to the south. Or alternatively Mountain time can start just east of Tucson/western edge of Hopi(Navajo already has mountain daylight time) should Phoenix or central AZ wants to stay aligned with Pacific time year round.

It makes sense for Western Arizona that begins with the big no mans land west of Phoenix in which the only major cities are Yuma, Lake Havasu City, Kingman, and Bullhead city, to align with Pacific time as they seem to have greater/closer practical ties with California and Southern Nevada/particularly Las Vegas(where their US mail is processed) than with Phoenix, AZ so I bet it would be a no brainer for them to align with Pacific Time year round.

Now the question is whether Mexico especially Sonora would adjust as well to align with the US and Arizona. I know they also gave up DST to stay the same as Arizona.

[hikernut]

The change in time differences between different parts of the country and the world is disruptive. As it stands today, some of the meetings I'm in get disrupted four times each year. It's four times instead of just two because Europe and the U.S. do not make the switch to/from daylight time on the same weekends.

So... just pick a time zone and stick with it.

[Magnum Mike]

Interesting to see that a majority of responders to the poll chose option 2, for Arizona to be on MDT permanently, I have a feeling those who chose that option are transplants from other states, whereas us Phoenix area native would feel differently about it.

Again, it makes sense to have longer daylight hours in the summer months for those who live in other mountain states or in northern Arizona, areas that don't experience hot summers like we do in Phoenix and Tucson do, and like I said before, daylight hours are long anyhow in the summer months, there's no reason to make them longer by turning the clocks back one hour, yes I know it would only be done once but the change would be permanent. The sun usually sets around 8:40 MST around the summer solstice (June 21st) so it might be tough for us desert natives to accept sunsets around 9:40 PM. We don't start noticing the shorter daylight hours until August, as we approach the fall equinox (September 21st).

I guess we'll just have to wait and see how this change will affect us.

[johnp292]

This was tried in 1973 and after 1 winter everyone hated it so much it was repealed. Dumb idea. It would probably be better to have everyone stay on Standard Time all year long, like AZ already does.

[hikernut]

Originally Posted by Magnum Mike

Again, it makes sense to have longer daylight hours in the summer months for those who live in other mountain states or in northern Arizona, areas that don't experience hot summers like we do in Phoenix and Tucson do, and like I said before, daylight hours are long anyhow in the summer months, there's no reason to make them longer by turning the clocks back one hour

One perspective...

The only time in the summer it's halfway bearable outside is early morning. Rough numbers... in June twilight starts at 4:30 am, the sun rises a bit before 5:30 am and by 6am it's high enough above the horizon to start becoming a problem. So there's a window of about 1 1/2 hours to run, walk the dogs, etc.

On Daylight Time that window would shift to 5:30-7:00 am, which is "friendlier" for me.

Of course none of this matters to someone who gets up at 7am or 8am. Nor does it matter to someone who enjoys sitting outside in the evening when it's still 103 F. It all comes down to personal tastes and schedules.

As a practical matter, however, going onto Daylight Time creates problems with school schedules, so I don't expect any change here.