A newplan to divide the state into 3 … time zones?

Do you know what time it is, California?

It’s time for new thinking about time — and time zones.

By putting Proposition 7 on November’s ballot, the state Legislature has granted us this opportunity to rethink our relationship to time. The measure undoes a 1949 ballot initiative that locked daylight saving time in place in California — and opens a conversation about how Californians set our clocks and our lives.

The measure’s passage would present the state with three options. The first is status quo: leaving the current daylight saving in place. The other two would give California its own time zone. One would end daylight saving and return to standard time yearround. The other would make daylight saving permanent, which would require a twothirds vote of the Legislature and federal legislation.

The debate about daylight saving time is global, with many competing arguments I don’t want to spend precious time on. Instead, I wish to convince you of something grander and timelier: California could now settle the question of what time is best — for the state and the world.

How? By choosing all three time options, at the same time.

I propose that California conduct a time experiment. For five years, let’s divide the state into three time zones — one for each time option.

Multiple time zones fit our geography. While Californians think of our state’s geography as running on a North- South axis, look at a map and you’ll see the state tilts in a west- east way. San Francisco is more than 5 degrees longitude west of San Diego. Blythe, on the Colorado River, is 10 degrees west of Cape Mendocino on our northern coast.

The best tool for creating time zones is the 120th meridian, which serves as our border with Nevada from Tahoe up to Oregon. To form time zones, divide the state along the 120th meridian south from Tahoe to the Pacific, just north of Santa Barbara.

West of the 120th meridian would be Redwood Time, with standard time year-round. East of the 120th meridian would be Cactus Time, with daylight saving time year-round.

One problem: The 120th meridian splits the San Joaquin Valley in half, and no region should labor under two different times. So, the eight San Joaquin Valley counties — Kern, Kings, Tulare, Fresno, Madera, Stanislaus, San Joaquin and Merced — would be a third zone, the status quo option, running on the current seasonal daylight system. Call it Almond Time. Instituting multiple time zones would have virtues beyond the experiment. It could be a force for unity in the West: Cactus Time California would be on the same time as neighboring Arizona, which is on standard time year-round, and would match Mountain Time with Utah and Colorado during the winter. Is it too much to hope that greater time synchronization could inspire greater collaboration between Western states on trade and energy?

Multiple time zones in California might well help with brownouts during late afternoon peak hours. By staggering the hour that people come home and turn on the air conditioning, you’d make the state’s electricity grid more stable. And multiple time zones could encourage an experiment in starting the school day later, a policy that researchers suggest would make kids less tired and readier to learn. With sunrise coming after 7:30 a.m. in Cactus Time, Southern California would be the place to try a 9 a.m. school start.

Multiple time zones might even encourage engagement with state government, since Californians flying to Sacramento from Los Angeles or San Diego would gain an hour as they travel. You’d arrive on your hourlong flight to the state capital at the same hour you left, making it easier to get to morning hearings. Time is money, and when’s the last time Sacramento saved you any of either?

Such an experiment might seem out-there, but out-there experiments are quintessentially Californian. In the process, we’d produce up-to- date data that could help the world, and California itself, determine what time would make us wealthiest, healthiest and wisest.

Or perhaps we Californians will find we like the experiment, and decide that our state is so timelessly diverse that it can run on different times.