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DOT To Map Out Nation's Time Zones After Report Shows No Official Map Exists (cnn.com) 38

Posted by BeauHD from the wait-what dept.
A person may take knowing the local time for granted, but an official review revealed that there is no single, accurate map showing the nation's time zones and local observance of Daylight Saving Time. CNN reports: Federal transportation officials are now at work creating an accurate map of the nation's time zones, according to a report by the inspector general for the Department of Transportation. The issue came up, the inspector general's office said, after the US Senate passed legislation this year to end the biannual time turn by making Daylight Saving Time permanent.

Investigators found no single map accurately showing the boundaries nationwide and said several sources of time information on the DOT website contained errors, such as inaccurately noting the time practices in some localities. For example, one map incorrectly identifies a deviation in Nevada: "Elko County, NV is shown as the location that changed time zones rather than the correct location, the city of West Wendover."

"The official boundaries are narratively described [in federal regulations] with various types of coordinates and geographic features such as lines of longitude, State or county lines, and rivers," the report stated. The inspector general report said the Transportation Department is responsible for keeping the clock because of the importance of time to travel. It said the original five time zones have expanded to nine.
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DOT To Map Out Nation's Time Zones After Report Shows No Official Map Exists More

DOT To Map Out Nation's Time Zones After Report Shows No Official Map Exists

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  • DOT? (Score:3)

    by JBMcB ( 73720 ) on Saturday September 24, 2022 @08:16PM (#62911323)

    Isn't this a job for NIST?

    • Re:DOT? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Local ID10T ( 790134 ) <ID10T.L.USER@gmail.com> on Saturday September 24, 2022 @08:32PM (#62911349) Homepage

      The inspector general report said the Transportation Department is responsible for keeping the clock because of the importance of time to travel.

      • > the importance of time to travel.

        Sounds like some sort of dog whistle to time travelers. 88mph, here we come!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      Isn't this a job for NIST?

      NIST is a standards body - they are responsible for defining the time zones and the time in those zones. But they aren't into defining the actual borders of the timezone.

      The DOT is likely doing it as timezones is something that strongly affects transportation - timezones were created to standardize train schedules, after all. But it impacts everything from trucking schedules to train schedules and airline schedules

  • TIL (Score:4, Funny)

    by waspleg ( 316038 ) on Saturday September 24, 2022 @08:17PM (#62911329) Journal

    That the DOT is responsible for time travel.

  • Nine Time Zones (Score:5, Interesting)

    by crow ( 16139 ) on Saturday September 24, 2022 @09:20PM (#62911423) Homepage Journal

    I was curious, as I know the four major time zones, plus Alaska (which I thought was also Hawaii, but that's wrong), so I looked in the linked report:

    In 1966, DOT was founded to serve as a focal point of responsibility for transportation safety and was given certain authorities over time zones and DST. The original five U.S. time-zones expanded to nine over the years. The current U.S. time zones are: Atlantic, eastern, central, mountain, Pacific, Alaska, Hawaii-Aleutian, Samoa, and Chamorro.

    I had thought they were talking about zones where DST isn't observed or things like that, but instead it's just all the territorial time zones.

  • "The official boundaries are narratively described [in federal regulations] with various types of coordinates and geographic features such as lines of longitude, State or county lines, and rivers,"

    So, when a river changes course as sometimes happens, do people living there have to change their clocks?

    The map of time zones is much like the gerrymandered maps of political districts. Both need a thorough cleaning. Personally I don't like lines that divide people. Patriotism is for puppets of the local regime.

  • Indiana is odd with time zones

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by quetwo ( 1203948 )

      They've made it a LOT better about a dozen years ago.

      It used to be that each county in Indiana could chose to be in either Eastern or Central timezone. They could also decide if they wanted to participate in DST or not.

      When going through northern Indiana, there were a few spots where you would cross a county line and the time would change 2 hours -- because you went from EST to CDT in one swoop.

      I believe Indiana still has some counties in the Central time-zone, but they all have to participate in DST now.

  • NIST is the official keeper of the clock, and publishes a map of time zones, and it publishes a map at time.gov. I suppose it might not be precise enough, but it certainly is _official_.

  • It's a bunch of baroque nonsense devised in farmer times that costs a lot on a recurring basis and carries virtually no benefit.

    The timing and availability of sunlight varies with literally every step you take in any directio, East or West, North or South, and people just look them up anyway if they're relevant to their plans. But arbitrary time zone borders and hour switches are a massive inconvenience that is too easy to screw up.

    Just get rid of them already.
    • Agreed. We have to improve this mess. What we should look at for more context, is that timezones were an improvement over previous, way worse system. Before them there were every location with it's own time based on Sun locally. Like when the Sun is in zenith, we would have 1200. Let's say we are at equator on 0 meridian (GMT line), the Sun is following the equator, to make it simpler. Suns apparent arc in the sky is 360 degrees in 24 hours, 30 degrees per hour. Someone else being 1 or roughly 60nm (a litt
      • For real. Just go to UTC. Or, if local solar time is so damn important, automate it in software with a continuous gradient so it's actually accurate and humans never have to think about it.

          • "I don't know if I can call my uncle in Australia..."

            So the scenario here is that this person (a)wants to talk to someone on another continent, (b)isn't in regular enough contact to be aware of the basics of their schedule, (c)refuses to look up the local solar time, since that's such a Herculean one-time task, and (d)won't just send a text saying "Hey, nbd, but something something. Get back to me when convenient."

            Clearly this is a reason to mangle and inconvenience in perpetuity the daily activities

  • Could someone just call Arthur David Olson or Paul Eggert? I think they could help.

  • Jackpot, NV is also on Mountain Time, Likely this is done to be in the same time zone as most of their customers in Idaho. It is in the same county as West Wendover and just a couple miles south of the northern state line. The timezone line goes just around the city. Leave jackpot and you are in Pacific time.
  • Seriously, NIST is the right one to do this and they should have done it years ago.

  • I thought Paul Eggert was in charge of world wide time zones. I hope he's still okay. The world still needs him.

    • Mos def. Taking off where Arthur David Olson left off, Eggert is reprised
      at (google keyword top hit) "time zone king ucla"

  • decades, some regions have remained in 1867.

  • Don't need a map. Need an algorithm.

  • Can they make the time zones run diagonally from northeast to southwest? That way the sun will rise and set at consistent times throughout the timezone. [flowingdata.com]

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