Sunday, November 5, 2017

The Case for Atlantic Time

Depressed at the prospect of sunset around 4:30 today (courtesy of our going off Daylight Savings Time last night)?  

Well, you are not alone. Last week, our state’s own Special Commission to Study the Commonwealth’s Time Zone issued a final report of findings and recommendations for the Legislature’s consideration. Based on research into what such a time zone change would mean for Massachusetts, the Commission recommended that Massachusetts could absolutely make a "data-driven case for moving to the Atlantic Time Zone (effectively observing year-round daylight saving time)."  If you are wondering why we couldn’t simply stay on Daylight Savings Time year-round (as this would be the simplest fix), federal law only allows states to opt OUT of Daylight Savings Time. So the only way for Massachusetts to effectively adopt Daylight Savings Time year-round would be to move from the Eastern Time Zone to the Atlantic Time Zone and then opt out of Daylight Savings Time.

The report did add that such a change should be contingent on the other New England states (possibly also New York) adopting the same strategy. 

I’m all for this move to Atlantic Time, much as I appreciated my extra hour of sleep last night. The graphic above says it all...

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