40 Post Offices here on the chopping block. Anyone else?

[barkley]

given that the bulk of what i get 'snail mail' is junk advertising, and i send few items out (pay allot of bills on-line)-i could totaly handle the post office saying that rather than delivering and picking up from me 6 days a week it was being reduced to 3.

even my mom who refuses to go near an atm let alone use a computer for banking or billing only uses the mailbox in her senior complex at best twice a week so i can't see how anyone would be horrendously hardshipped if the post office just said "we will only drop off/pick up mondays, wednesdays and fridays-if you require services on the other days go to the nearest post office" (realy-if a letter is so pressing that 24 hours difference in sending/receiving is an issue, regular mail service is'nt the way to be going in the first place).

 

[Serena]

There are 3 in my town that are scheduled for closing. Now, I don't mind 5 days rather than six, if they are open later so people have a chance to get to the post office on the open days.

 

[mkel34]

As opposed to using a Transporter?

Maybe they were referring to having a gov't run entity that loses close to $3 billion a year delivering junk mail six days a week.

 

[Glenn]

Everyone blames the recession for the drop in mail. Some of that is true to some extent but the PO also has driven away many mailers. Over a yr ago mailing rules were changed regarding large envelopes. Too many if its this you pay a surcharge, if its thicker than you pay a different rate. It was & still is very confusing & expensive for businesses sending out legal documents for example. At that time several newpaper articals here looked at the confusion even at the post office. One law firm was so upset at getting mail returned even after the PO clerks had worked out the rate they went solely with FEDEX. So instead of mailing 15-25 pieces/day FEDEX got the busines & we are talking about items costing $ to mail. How many companies did this in frustration?
Someone mentioned who still goes to the PO. I always see a line at mine on Sat. I go to pick up registered or certified letters & see people mailing packages, buying stamps, sending registered.

 

[C.Ann]

P.S. All the experts were agreed that within 10 years there will only be 3-day-
a-week postal delivery.

Center for Science in the Public Interest"

It is a very atiquated system, people carrying a letter to your door.

Mikeeee

In rural Smalltown, USA (which is where I am right now) this would be a disaster..

There is no "door" delivery here - unless the package is too big to fit in the mailbox.. Otherwise you have to hoof it (or in some cases drive) all the way down to the main road where the rural mailboxes are lined up to get your mail..

Many of the year-round residents here (the majority) live at poverty level - or below.. Accessing everything via the interent is not a possibility for them.. No emails; no paying bills online; etc.. Many do not even have a car.. The closest post office here (from my door) is 20 miles round-trip in one direction and approximately 35 miles round-trip in the other direction.. Three-day a week mail pick up and delivery would be a severe hardship for the folks here - can't even imagine how they could get their bills paid in a timely fashion..

While it might be fine with the city/suburban folks, not everyone lives in the city.. Believe it or not, rural America still exists..

 

[The Mystery Machine]

In rural Smalltown, USA (which is where I am right now) this would be a disaster..

There is no "door" delivery here - unless the package is too big to fit in the mailbox.. Otherwise you have to hoof it (or in some cases drive) all the way down to the main road where the rural mailboxes are lined up to get your mail..

Many of the year-round residents here (the majority) live at poverty level - or below.. Accessing everything via the interent is not a possibility for them.. No emails; no paying bills online; etc.. Many do not even have a car.. The closest post office here (from my door) is 20 miles round-trip in one direction and approximately 35 miles round-trip in the other direction.. Three-day a week mail pick up and delivery would be a severe hardship for the folks here - can't even imagine how they could get their bills paid in a timely fashion..

While it might be fine with the city/suburban folks, not everyone lives in the city.. Believe it or not, rural America still exists..

C. Ann that quote was not from me.

 

[mjantz]

There are 3 in my town that are scheduled for closing. Now, I don't mind 5 days rather than six, if they are open later so people have a chance to get to the post office on the open days.

I've head that Thursdays would be the other closed day as opposed to Saturdays. That way you don't end up with possibly 3 days of no mail service if there's a Monday holiday.

While it might be fine with the city/suburban folks, not everyone lives in the city.. Believe it or not, rural America still exists..

Yeah but you know, we're flyover country here. Our opinion doesn't matter & we're obviously too stupid to know what's good for us.

As I said previously, we have family in very rural areas. Centralizing mail to big facilities would be a serious burden on them & others in the community. I personally think mail should be like schools. Sometimes you have to pay more for rural areas to get what they need & that's OK.

 

[C.Ann]

C. Ann that quote was not from me.

Oops! Sorry.. I cut off the end (the "source").. I knew it wasn't from you..

 

[DarthKTrava]

The problem I see with not being open on Saturdays is that if you get a package and need to go to the post office to pick it up, what do you do if you work M-F? Some post offices close at 4; people who work normal office hours can only make it on Saturdays.

Perhaps have it delivered to your workplace if your boss doesn't care.

 

[bicker]

There are many reasons why folks actually need to go to the post office, and so getting rid of Saturday hours entirely is simply a non-starter. Is that even being discussed? All I recall reading were reports that they're considering getting rid of Saturday delivery. I didn't get the impression, necessarily, that all post offices would be closed on Saturday.

I would expect some post office consolidation. We have a post office serving the 25K people living in Burlington, and I suspect there are post offices serving the 20K people living in Billerica and the 30K people living in Reading. That seems wasteful to have them all open; I think they could readily close all three and have all of us served by the large postal facility from which all our delivery vehicles come anyway, in Woburn.

The elimination of Saturday delivery has another foe, not mentioned above: Netflix. They actually just added Saturday operations. (Previously, if you mailed a disc back on Friday it was not processed until at least Monday, and you wouldn't get the next disc in your queue until at least Tuesday; since they started Saturday operations this summer, I would mail a disc back on Friday and the next disc would reach my mailbox by midday on Monday.)

 

[Janet Hill]

Here's a list of the offices on the proposed list:

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/post-office-closings-2009-complete-list-post-offices-close

Does anyone know if they close offices will all of the people at that location lose their job or will they move people around based on seniority. Meaning that newer hires at open locations will be let go.

 

[Veronica Lodge]

I have absolutely no problem with them dropping Saturday delivery, as long as the post office still maintains operating hours. Heck, they can drop Tuesday and Thursday delivery too, just for snots and giggles. Were it not for credit card applications and solicitations from local businesses, I wouldn't get mail most days.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

The elimination of Saturday delivery has another foe, not mentioned above: Netflix. They actually just added Saturday operations. (Previously, if you mailed a disc back on Friday it was not processed until at least Monday, and you wouldn't get the next disc in your queue until at least Tuesday; since they started Saturday operations this summer, I would mail a disc back on Friday and the next disc would reach my mailbox by midday on Monday.)

Well that is interesting. I will have to give it a go.

 

[Sandy321]

There sure are a lot from Chicago - I dont even know what this means - -

FINANCE STATION N-FND STA CHICAGO IL

there is a list of 'station L, or M, Q,T, U, ...etc

 

[bicker]

Well that is interesting. I will have to give it a go.

It isn't nationwide yet. (We're talking about Netflix Saturday operations.)

 

[diesel]

I would expect some post office consolidation. We have a post office serving the 25K people living in Burlington, and I suspect there are post offices serving the 20K people living in Billerica and the 30K people living in Reading. That seems wasteful to have them all open; I think they could readily close all three and have all of us served by the large postal facility from which all our delivery vehicles come anyway, in Woburn.

.)[/QUOTE]

Billerica actually has three post offices so I would think they could close at least one of them.

 

[luvmy3]

I heard someone on NPR (not sure who it was as I was just flipping channels) and she was saying that the goal is to consolidate. In the larger metro areas, there are usually several branches under a main branch, some are for more sorting, retail and other things that I forget. She said that what they want to do is to consolidate these things in these areas so it would be like having 5 branches doing what 10 did before that. She also said that small town and rural areas most likely wouldn't be effected by any of this because they wouldn.t have several branches under 1 main. I didn't hear her comments on dropping a delivery day but what I did hear made perfect sense to me.

 

[Straitlover]

My sister is a PO rural carrier. They told her that if they cut a day, it would probably be Tuesday, as that is the slowest day of the week mail-wise. They would cut most of the substitute carrier positions (keep a few to fill in for vacations, sick days, extra heavy mail days, etc) and then the regualr carriers would all work Saturdays (subs run the Saturday routes now).

There is only one PO in her town, and it's a decent sized town (poulation over 22,000 in 2008), so no fear that her office will close. Now, it's possible they might re-do the routes and lose some regualr carrier positions.

 

[bicker]

There is only one PO in her town, and it's a decent sized town (poulation over 22,000 in 2008), so no fear that her office will close.

I don't follow. We've got a larger population and I don't see any reason to assume that our one post office will remain open.

 

[PghLybrt]

Ours closed a few months ago. Now everyone has to go to get their mail the next town over. It had serviced about 400 homes, all had to pick up mail at the PO. No home delivery.