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Now that the U.S. Senate has introduced a bill, that would place the country on permanent daylight savings time, I think it would be a great time to unify all of Idaho into the Pacific Time Zone.
Now that the U.S. Senate has introduced a bill, that would place the country on permanent daylight savings time, I think it would be a great time to unify all of Idaho into the Pacific Time Zone.
Yes, it would.
But I doubt it will happen. There's too much institutional dependence in the panhandle on the Pacific Time zone that would affect the panhandle's economy and time schedules now.
It's mostly the railroads that would be affected, and their schedules are both vital and very complicated.
The panhandle has all the interstate rail lines west to east. The rest of the state have none at all.
I think the opposite. It would be a great time to unify all of Idaho into Mountain Time. I've lived in both: From Oregon, joined the military, and retired (still working) in Idaho. I much prefer Mountain Time to Pacific Time. I like that the Boise area is at the very western edge of Mountain Time, so it stays light much longer at night. Compared to the in-laws who live outside of Rapid City, SD, it's stays light about 45 minutes longer in Boise than Rapid City.
Plus, I still watch TV sometimes. I like my primetime starting at 7PM vs. 8PM in pacific time.
Anywhere from Grangeville north is linked to Pacific Time though. Grangeville and Orofino are connected more to Lewiston than Missoula even with the state highway going that way. Lewiston would not want to switch without joint action from Clarkston /WA side though Lewiston is larger because they are twinned. Moving north, Moscow-Pullman are also linked though not as closely. They would not want to be separate as there are many agencies that service both Whitman Co WA and Latah Co ID. The two universities do a lot of projects together too.
Spokane is the largest city in the region. Having North Central and North ID on a different time zone would hurt economic activity. CDA and Spokane are quickly becoming one large metro with development and traffic building up on I-90. Whatever CDA does also impacts the Silver Valley which would rely on them for employment. Moving further north, Spokane and CDA are the only real employment centers in the area and Sandpoint and north are popular tourist places for the PNW. Bonners Ferry and beyond also have economic ties to Canadian travelers and BC is on Pacific Time.
North Idaho is tied economically and socially to Eastern WA, and business wise to the West Coast, so it only makes sense for them to remain in the Pacific time zone as the OP says. South Idaho I assume is much more tied to Salt Lake City, especially SE ID, so I don't know that it makes sense for them to change. Boise I really don't know, would be interesting to see input from people from that area.
Small input from a part-time NID'er: it sometimes throws us for a loop when we go over to Sanders Ct or Lincoln Ct (Montana) for dinner or shopping, and realize that they're one hour ahead. We've missed many a dinner that way! Yes, we should be used to it by now, but sometimes we forget, because it's just down the road for us. Imagine that kind of inconvenience multiplied for everybody going back and forth to Spokane or other WA towns if NID were on Mountain Time!
I don't really care as long as they make up their minds. It's fine with me if I don't have to reset my clocks twice a year.
It would be a bit difficult for North Idaho to be on mountain time since a lot of our business is with Spokane and a lot of our workers work in Spokane. But whatever. Just make up your minds and the rest of us will adjust to it.
In some regards I kind of get it how it makes sense. In particular Eastern and Southern Idaho do seem to be more akin to the Mountain Time zone, especially when you're coming out of Utah to the north. But just as sensible from Lewiston on north, especially the likes of Coeur D Alene and such up that way it would be very weird indeed to simply drive across the border to Spokane and change time zone. Oh well no real easy answer.
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