The Associated Press has an article on Knox County’s consideration to move to Eastern Time. Eastern Time agitators who were apparently not very diligent when the USDOT was considering the time zone issue last fall have obtained 3,000 signatures in support of Eastern Time. The Knox County commissioners will decide next week whether to join Daviess, Dubois, and Martin counties in requesting a do-over on the time zone decision.
Many blamed Gov. Mitch Daniels and Rep. Troy Woodruff, R-Vincennes, for the time-zone confusion and said the matter would be an issue in the fall campaign when Woodruff runs for re-election.
Daniels pushed the legislature last year to adopt daylight-saving time, with Woodruff casting the needed 51st vote in the House after pledging to constituents that he would never support daylight time.
Just a reminder of what the map looks like currently:
In any event, the county-by-county approach to timezones is and always has been ridiculous. It pits county against county and makes county commissioners try to solve a complex jigsaw puzzle where they only control one piece and have no way of knowing what the other pieces are going to do.
Doug,
To ask about the other part of the state, does anyone know if the situation in Pulaski ‎County ever got worked out? Last I heard everyone was just choosing their own time. ‎Although the county is officially on Central Time, the schools are on Eastern Time. This ‎is because many of the farming/vocational programs they run are in other school ‎corporations in neighboring Eastern Time counties. As such, many local establishments ‎are staying with Central Time while businesses owned by national chains are set with ‎Eastern Time. I even heard that a gas station which has a Subway has two different ‎times; one for the local gas station and one for the Subway (I did not have a chance to ‎confirm this).‎
It’s kind of funny. For all of the complaining from people wanting Central Time (or at least no DST), after the “new” time has gone into effect, there are several counties wanting to move to Eastern Time, not the other way. Interesting …
I see some wisdom in letting the summer run its full course before deciding to propose ANOTHER change.
Last I heard about Pulaski County, the county government caved on its plan to exercise civil disobedience or home rule or whatever they were calling it. Local businesses were picking and choosing how they would conduct their own affairs, but I’m not sure if anything uniform has been worked out.
As for Chris’s comment, I don’t think there is anything peculiar about what’s going on. The decision making (or lack thereof) on the time zone issue was so neglected that no process was put in place to come anywhere close to getting a consensus on the proper time zone for an area. After Daylight Saving Time finally squeaked through after having been defeated two or three times during the session, Hoosiers were told that the USDOT would hold statewide hearings on the proper time zone. USDOT decided it wasn’t going to do that and instead exercised its discretion by implementing county-by-county consideration where non-petitioning counties would absolutely and irrevocably remain in the Eastern zone and where petitioning counties would have a shot at Central Time if they jumped through several hoops.
After USDOT announced the system it had decided to follow, there was a very short time frame for public input. Central Time advocates were the most vigorous during this period of time, and several counties were placed on Central Time despite significant obstacles not faced by those desiring to be put on Eastern Time. Because of the ad hoc approach to the time zone issue, many Eastern Time advocates in counties switched to Central Time were apparently caught flat footed and, only after the USDOT decision became agitated. So now they are putting pressure on their respective county commissioners who I think are the public officials who are really getting the short end of the stick in this whole affair. State and federal officials made the mess and county commissioners have to try to clean up after them.
Some county commissioners on both sides in SW Indiana have talked up creating “bandwagon” effects, possibly hoping that the time line wouldn’t end up on their border. Dubois County may be typical, one consistently pro CT commissioner, one consistently pro ET commissioner and one swing commissioner. The pro ET commissioner now keeps making sounds that Vanderburgh County should follow Dubois County’s lead and request a move to ET. He has to because putting the time line back on the Spencer/Dubois County line, now with an hour summer time difference, is a recipe for problems for the local tourist industry. Personally I smell the Indiana Chamber of Commerce stirring things up.
One of the oddities of many of the original petitions (excluding notably St. Joseph and Marshall, where they knew all along that they wanted to be in sync with Chicago) were the number of counties requesting to be moved to Central “Daylight Saving” Time and not to the Central Time Zone. Given the poor quality of many of these petitions, particularly in SW Indiana (here I would exclude Perry and Martin Counties) one wonders if some of the folks supporting the move actually thought they were just getting rid of summer EDT in favor of year round CDT.
For those with long memories, or have read way to much about the background of this subject, much of Indiana, when it was in the Central Time Zone, loved DST. In fact much of the state observed year round Central Daylight.
Doug- What’s the alternative to the county-by-county approach? Imposition by the USDOT? Imposition from the state level? Is that really better than self-determination by the counties?
Really, if the solutions are going to by statewide, someone is going to be upset. If the decision is made for statewide EST, most of the counties shown in pink on your very nice graphic will be furious. Not Knox, apparently. If its to be Central, you will have much of the state furious, but especially the parts near Cincinnati, and in the NE corner of the state.
If the imposition comes from the state, there will be partisans who complain regardless. If the imposition comes from USDOT, the complaint will be for states rights.
As for me, I support the county’s right to self-determination. Put it up to a popular vote. The county-by-county struggle is endless, because even if the state is uniform, the counties in Illinois contiguous to Indiana can make the same argument you made about the ridiculous nature of the jigsaw puzzle. The line has to be drawn somewhere. Do you really think it unfair to the people of a county to let them choose?
If you’re going to have statewide determination on Daylight Saving Time, I can’t buy into the idea that it’s critical to have county determination of the time zone.
Heck, if we’re so concerned about local control, why not do away with time zones altogether? We can simply go back to “local time” where every community set its clock a little bit differently.
Now that the Daylight Savings debate is “over”, how many years (decades?) will we be hearing about one county or another considering switching time zones? The Feds are screwy and the Gov’r isn’t much help. He hasn’t offered one bit of guidance.
Well the governor is on record (as if that matters since he will deny what he said should it become inconvenient) that time zone choice is a local matter except: (1) when it matters to someone who wants to stay on Eastern Time; or (2) when it is St. Joseph County. Alles klar?
I think the concept Paul posted above about St Joseph County/default ET might work the same way in SW Indiana,but this time ‘forcing’all counties to stay on CT which is now the default time for that area,(also for Pulaski County in NW)) I did read lots of the USDOT final anaylsis on why they put some counties on CT and left others on ET,and although we may disagree on how they measured each comment, they commented on every category of comment made both at the local hearings,and onto the docket.I cannot see any of these counties now on CT being allowed to go back to ET very soon,if ever…USDOT really left a public deep paper trail for everyone to read. It’s very official and very complete and very final.That being said, it’s amazing that the isse of time NEVER ends,and there may be surpises ahead.
I disagree that the DOT was “very final” on the issue of time zone for St. Joseph County. The DOT acknowledged weight to the arguments on both sides, but seemed to me most concerned about a lack of political unity on the request, with one commissioner openly and actively opposing the petition, and another commissioner, who while publically supporting the move to CT, was undercutting St. Joseph County’s position in other ways. The DOT points to where this commissioner, as a member of MACOG, “made a motion to ‘support the sending of a letter by the policy board to ask that the four county region [i.e. St. Joseph, Elkhart, Kosciusko and Marshall] all remain in the same time zone'”.
The DOT concluded that “Based on the comments made at the hearing and to the docket, there was no consensus among elected officials . . . on the proposed time change for St. Joseph County.” St. Joseph County made a good enough case to move to CT, all it needs is to present a reasonably united front on its next try.
Two arguments that won’t be used again for CT is that Indiana ‘belongs on CT due to geography and longitude’,and that ‘late sunrise is unnatural and unsafe for school children’.And that leaves only regional solutions.So I don’t see how there will ever be a consensus if there hasn’t been one since 1960, when the state was 1st divided by a time zone line.The new potential map(before final USDOT ruling) was so much like the former 1960’s map….Seems like generational time zone allegiance being passed on down.
As much as people believe the issue is still alive and well, I am sure it is for some people, but as a whole, I do not believe DST or time zones will be debated on the Senate or House floors for a good while. By that time, people will have started to familiarize themselves with DST. I do however believe that counties near the current line will continue to battle with the issue for a good while until a final decision is made. If the counties in SW Indiana were to petition again and be granted the switch, I would think it would be considered final. The USDOT will not continue to switch them back and forth. If their petition is not granted, then I believe that decision is final and nothing more can be done. However, in the whole scheme of things, I have a hard time believing the time zone boundary is going to make its way any farther east than it is now. I really feel EDT is here to say, and I am not just saying that because I am an EDT advocate and love it. I am continually seeing people who are beginning to enjoy the benefits of DST, and besides the few inconveniences early and late in DST such as late-morning sunrises, people are becoming as worst impartial to the idea. I do not think the problem with Indiana time was ever really about being a state bordering the time zone or having two time zones in the state. Many states deal with this issue, and there is really no problem with it. People are use to how it is. The problem with Indiana is when almost all the people in the United States observed DST and you do not, confusion and unsettlement exists. We were always ‘on the fence’ and we had to come off of the fence sometime. Now that we finally jumped off the fence, we have had to pick a side. People are now fighting over what side to choose, when even I will admit, there are things about either option that are negative. It a local mindset, no DST was pleasent because we did not have early morning darkness in March and October and extremely early evening darkness in November, December, and January. However, we have to choose between, as some people see it, the lesser of the two evils now. (I personally do not believe DST is evil) Once a decision is made and the decision is held constant for a period of time, the issue will go away because people will be use to the way things and where the line exists, just like many of the other states that exist fine in two time zones.
Josh,
I agree that DST was the real issue and that it’s now solved. I also think there is ONE consistant that will remain in the future. No county will be forced by USDOT to change time,but they may be forced to keep the time they observe.That may be seen as fair or unfair,but it’s the the basic stability of the process.
The last impressions voters will have of DST will be those formed in late October, when they confront sunrise times as late as those occurring between Christmas and early January, not the impressions they have right now. It is then too that the fact that DST extends into November beginning in 2007 may make an impression. The book on EDT in Indiana may close some day, but I am not ready to say it has closed before we complete our first full season of suffering.
Some other points, that other states “deal” with being divided between time zones is a superficial view that ignores consideration of the character of the other states that are so divided. Indiana lies at one extreme in terms of having the highest population densities in areas the time line runs through. Consider this against the other extreme, Alaska, where the western Aleutians are in a different time zone than the mainland. Indiana is the smallest state so divided, and it is the only state that has two distinct pockets in the “minority time zone”. At 20% of its population I believe Indiana ranks third in terms of percentage of its population that lies in the minority time zone behind Tennessee and Kentucky, and in those two states the time line is clearly an east/west divide, not a north south divide as it is for much of Indiana. Tennessee is really the state with the most comparable situation, given two major cities on Eastern Time and two on Central, but distance and topology promote far more intra-state regional identification there than here. (The Tennessee state flag carries three stars to represent the three regions of the state, so strong is this intra-state identification). Indiana literally borders Chicago, the nation’s third largest city and probably the economically dynamic area in the midwest, and Chicago is on Central Time. NW Indiana, particularly Porter County, has great economic potential, and its vitality will feed the time line issue.
Is there really a lesson for us in the experiences of the other time zone divided states?
I will agree with you on the fact that Indiana does lie very awkwardly as far as the time zone line is concerned. There really is no way anyone could refute that statement. However, either way you go, large cities that are located close to one another will be in separate time zones, and on top of this, many large cities are located near the state line. Some of these cities are located in Indiana; others are in Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, and Kentucky. This does create havoc in the ‘proper’ economic time zone for Indiana. This is why Indiana will never be located in one time zone. The Northwest sector of Indiana is a part of the Greater Chicago area; it would be too much of a hassle to business and residents to be of a different time than Chicago. I have no problem with accepting this, and totally understand the situation. I always realize though Louisville and Cincinnati create the same situation with the bordering Indiana counties. Just because Chicago is much larger than either of these two cities, does not negate the fact that these southern and southeastern counties are heavily involved with the economies of their neighboring cities. As far as Evansville is concerned, I realize the border is comprised of Illinois and the Central Time portion of Kentucky, and therefore, it is appropriate to remain in the Central Time Zone. There is no good way to get to Evansville from the rest of Indiana; it is really disconnected with the larger part of Indiana. (Sometimes I wonder though if Evansville and the surrounding Indiana counties would petition to switch to Eastern Time to join the rest of Indiana, if the Kentucky counties would do the same and unify more of their state with its largest cities as well.) I know South Bend was home to a heavy debate of the time zone, and I am really unfamiliar with the area. To me the answer always seemed obvious when looking at the map and see an Eastern Time Zone neighbor to the North. This proved to be wrong, but would assume, the greater number of businesses and people would be inconvenienced with the Central Time Zone in the whole scheme of things if the rest of Indiana was on Eastern Time. As for the rest of Indiana, the majority will follow Indianapolis. And when it comes to deciding the proper time zone for Indianapolis, the businesses have overwhelming favored Eastern. When looking at simple, straight-line distances from Indianapolis, the closest city is Cincinnati, followed by Fort Wayne, Dayton, and Louisville to round out the top five. These cities easily cover the majority of business conducted by Indianapolis. The next five, in order, are Frankfort, South Bend, Gary, Evansville, and Owensville. The latter two are very difficult to travel to from Indianapolis though. Lexington comes in at eleven, and Chicago is actually the twelfth-closest to Indianapolis. But if heading downtown, Chicago is a longer drive than Columbus, the thirteenth-closest. With this being said and as repetitive as it may sound to the on-going debate, I think it is obvious why Indianapolis business favors the Eastern Time Zone, and therefore, will keep the majority of Indiana where it is today. Chicago may be the largest of all the neighboring cities, but there are far more Eastern Time Zone cities within the same radius.
My distance data was found at http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/distances.html?n=105.
Ive lived in Chicago and from my perspective Chicago looks westward. Chicago has the lake at its back ( although its called Chicagos ‘front yard’) Traveling into Indiana from Chicago is one big hassle. Chicago starts to get scary on the South Side and continues that way through Gary.Chicago has great commuter rail service, going in every direction,but NW Indiana is not in the Chicago suburban commuter railroad management,which has to ‘go it alone'( and it shows) The growing Indiana suburbs are off and to the south of the South Shore railroad Corridor.Down the length of Lake Michigan is a very convenient place to draw a time zone lines,and unifies Michigan in ET and unfortunately that dictates time in Indiana.Time zone is a VERTICAL concept since it is longitudinal.
Chicago is the undisputed cultural and ecomomic center for a long way N,W and S,but as we go East around the lake there are conflicting allegiances,and many long-established cultural/economic centers.
I think time zone reflects culture and economics and I cant even imagine Chicago being divided by time from areas North and West and South.Ive always looked at Detroit, Cleveland and Cincinnati as ‘Eastern Cities’,but im sure that’s just cultural upbringing. I know that The Midwest extends to PA/OH border.But TZ is ALL ABOUT culture.
I have no statistics or data,but I would say what I wrote above is typical and a wide-spread view.
I live in Martin county and have been involved with this since all this DST time zone business started last year the amount of people that showed up to support EDT at the new time meetings in the counties is quite small as compared to the populations of the counties the most impressive has been 3000 signatures for EDT in Knox county with 600 for CDT however the petition for EDT was around much longer than the CDT petition.The commissioner in Martin county who cast the deciding vote to re-petition for EDT was defeated in the primary John Collins,I and many CDT supporters worked to defeat him I had always supported him in the past but he promised there would be no new time meetings last FEB then voted for one!The chamber of commerce and influential people in Jasper pressured big time CDT supporter commissioner John Burger to switch his vote so Dubois county would re-petition for EDT the vote was 2-1.He was a outspoken CDT supporter at the DOT meeting in Jasper last November and some commenters to the DOT docket from Dubois county said one of his kids was even threatened at school this is a very divisive issue in southwest Indiana,my sister and brother in law live in Sullivan county and work at Crane in Martin county and we disagree on this issue.I hope these new petitions will be denied so this madness will end.I have read the final 18 page DOT report so I know if any of the petitions are found to have merit the DOT issues a NPRM and there would have to be another comment period DOES ANYONE KNOW IF THERE WOULD HAVE TO BE ANOTHER REGIONAL DOT HEARING?I am not clear on this point.Also the commissioners have not thought ahead to a situation if the DOT just proposes to change 1 or 2 of the counties what then?The whole ideal is not to split the region.I know this decision was forced on them but they have came out looking foolish on this first they want CDT now EDT I am just glad they have no say on the I-69 route for southwest Indiana they wouldn`t be able to decide where to put it!!
Am I supposed to be impressed that you lived in Chicago Lou? I went to college in Evanston, worked just east of the Loop in the Prudential Building, lived both on the Northside (easy walk to Wrigley Field) and Glenview, and was married at a church on Addison. I’ll trust my own knowledge of Chicago.
Trying to get to Chicago from Indiana by car using the Borman and the Dan Ryan is a pain, but outside of construction I’ve had good luck using the Toll Road to the Skyway, then up Stoney Island and around the museum of Science and Industry to Lake Shore Drive. If I have to continue west I pick up the east/west expressways downtown, and if north I can return to the Kennedy just north of the river. I very much disagree that the south side is scary, and certainly not when compared to a good chunk of the west side.
My impression of Chicago’s cultural and economic preeminence is that it clearly embraces South Bend. While many in South Bend and Elkhart were interested in keeping those two communities together almost no one was talking about Indianapolis. My sense was that Elkhart simply didn’t want to find itself in the place that La Porte County was, a CT county bordering ET counties to its north, east and sourth. (Elkhart would not have in nearly so tough a position as La Porte though, there is nothing bigger than South Bend which is closer to La Porte, but Porter County to its west has been the major growth engine in the area). With Lake, Porter and La Porte Counties on South Bend’s doorstep (those counties total over 700,000 residents), and Chicago just over the horizon, many in St. Joseph were willing to take that chance. South Bend has the infrastructure (commuter rail, air transport) to be the eastern portal for Chicago, but is now a border town on the wrong side of the border.
I totally agree that the South Shore would benefit from having a subsidy as Chicago’s Metra has, but it is hardly a secret that Indianapolis and its suburbs dominate the legislature and they have rarely shown any interest in the South Shore. Our Indianapolis oriented governor even seems to think it appropriate that the people of South Bend pay whatever the market will bear for use of their only interstate class highway, while taking a good chunk of the time discounted value of selliing the right to so drain their pockets to give the people of Martinsville and Indianapolis a toll free interstate between their communities.
Paul,
I dont know South Bend except for Notre Dame and of course ND sports,and I know there was a general low grade confusion when Chicago changed clocks and South Bend didn’t (having to do with sports as I remember) I would say the biggest problem would be transportation. There needs to be better public transit from the south part of Lake and Porter counties to make NW Indiana a more desirable commute.
DST should help South Bend. Hoosiers either dont care or deliberately minimized the hassle perpetual EST brought the state.Being the same as Chicago 7 months of the year was argued as a PLUS,but the fact that the relative time changed back and forth negated that argument totally.
Now we have two posts from people who have admitted to having spent time in Chicago! Peace to us both!
What ever pull South Bend has to Chicago it also is pulled by those surrounding areas on ET,and that reflects the lack of consensus on which time zone to belong to.That won’t change.I absolutly believe that a defined commuting area should not be divided by TZ.Why make people suffer needlessly going to and from work every day?
There are thousands of commuters crossing every county line from Lake to Porter to La Porte to St. Joseph to Elkhart. All five counties (and I would add Lagrange, Marshall and Kosciusko) should indeed be in one time zone, Central. It has been my point all along that Elkhart county’s interests to the east (whatever those are, all their officials talked about at the hearing were the ties between St. Joseph and Elkhart) are outweighed by St. Joseph County’s interests to the west.
The “lack of consensus” also had a partisan tinge to it. All of the region’s Democrats and some Republicans were pulling for Central, some Republicans were spouting evasions and some Republicans were pushing Eastern. We will see if the “lack of consensus” survives the November elections. Only then will we know if time zones and DST, as issues, have legs. It is interesting to see how much interest the Indiana Chamber has in the St. Joseph County time zone issue. The local chambers, at least publically, wouldn’t take a position beyond the “evasion of choice” statement, which was that St. Joseph and Elkhart remain on the same time. Too many prominant businesses local to the area were very pro Central. I suspect the Indiana Chamber knows that South Bend is just big enough to reignite the issue all across northern Indiana. My feeling is that it is big enough to make it an issue even in Fort Wayne.
The EDT advocates have attempted to cast those of us who want to be in our natural time zone as a group of overly emotional Neanderthal obstructionists blocking the path to progress. And they have also framed the argument to be about daylight time when it is in fact about time zones. No elected official campaigned for EDT in 2004. If Governor Daniels had done so, we would be talking about Governor Kernan.
Their arguments consist of unproven assertions. They have also made statements that are absolutely false. Such as the state is more united than ever before when in fact it is more divided than last year when all 92 counties clocks were legally set to the same time between the first of April and the end of October. It is not true that it has been over thirty years since we observed daylight time. The truth is we are one of the few locales in the nation that observed daylight time (Central Daylight) all year. What we have this year is actually double daylight time. Their stated objective was to bring Indiana time in sync with the rest of the nation. Sunday, April 2nd, the sunrise for New York City was at 6:38 EDT, for Indianapolis 7:28 EDT, and for Chicago 6:32 CDT. I found it very condescending and insulting for them to instruct us how to change our clocks.