The end of an era

[Meadbh]

Door to door mail delivery will be phased out completely in Canada over the next 5 years.

Canada Post to phase out urban home mail delivery - Ottawa - CBC News

The numbers clearly show why changes are necessary. I had expected something less radical, for example, delivery three times a week. This will have no direct effect on me as I live in a condo with community mailboxes. These days, nothing urgent arrives by snail mail anyhow, with the exception of parcels.

[Koogie]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Meadbh These days, nothing urgent arrives by snail mail anyhow, with the exception of parcels.

Precisely. I can do without all the pizza flyers and realtor pamphlets ....

[poorcarver]

I wish the US would go to this. I have kept track and I have received exactly one mailing of significance since September 1st of 2013. The rest including newspapers I am not subscribed to, "free" magazines, various bulky ad flyers and the rest are in recycling.

I am hoping for an "official" email address that for a fee would serve the same legal purposes as US Mail. Might be a money maker for the Postal Service.

[REWahoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by poorcarver I am hoping for an "official" email address that for a fee would serve the same legal purposes as US Mail. Might be a money maker for the Postal Service and hackers all over the world.

FIFY

[Alan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Meadbh Door to door mail delivery will be phased out completely in Canada over the next 5 years.

Just urban delivery, right?

The UK recently privatized their postal service. Obviously they don't have the same territory to cover like Canada or the US but over the last decade or so had been closing small post offices.

[Midpack]

Wow, sounds more abrupt than I would have expected. Though it also sounds like they're mostly going to community mailboxes, like many condos/apartment here have always had, that doesn't sound too bad. I do agree posts services should be independently financially solvent here too.

Like the earlier post, we do everything we can online and don't take any paper magazines anymore. So we get almost nothing but junk mail we really don't want, it's a nuisance and a total waste of all the resources used. Hopefully USPS will right their financial ship sooner to rather than later...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alan Just urban delivery, right? The UK recently privatized their postal service. Obviously they don't have the same territory to cover like Canada or the US but over the last decade or so had been closing small post offices.

It sounded to me like rural/suburban delivery was non-existent already?

Quote:

A Conference Board of Canada report released in April said two-thirds of Canadians already do without door-to-door regular mail service, whether through rural mailboxes, group mailboxes, delivery facilities or "centralized mail points."

[sunnysideup]

I wrote the Postmaster General at least a year ago suggesting something similar for the US.

Why? I get abysmal service from my own town's post Office, so I PAY for a PO Box in a neighboring town for all important stuff. I PAY to drive to pick up my mail that is not delivered. Where is the logic here?

I feel that people should pay for home delivery and PO Boxes should be cheap or free. Of course they would have to have towers built to accomodate the folks wanting them. However, long term this would make the PO solvent.

I don't think the US has the guts to make such a move, however. They backed off of eliminating Saturday delivery--and I usually get only 1-2 things on a Saturday, when other days I might get a dozen junk mail. I think Saturday's a mini vacation for the postman.

Just my opinion. And one more thing, I have found our local Postal Service to be lacking in understanding the meaning of "SERVICE"...

[Meadbh]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Midpack It sounded to me like rural/suburban delivery was non-existent already?

That is correct.

http://www.canadapost.ca/cpo/mc/asse...idelines_e.pdf

When it comes to an "official email address" we have had ePost since 2000. Bills come here and are linked to my bank account for ease of payment (although I have most of them on preauthorized payment).

https://www.epost.ca/service/tour.a

Luckily the tools are already in place to replace most of the value of letter delivery (read information delivery) service, and people are using them.

[Sue J]

For a week in November our household did a USPS diary. Every day I had to sort our mail by type, label it and record each piece. I answered questions about what the mail was (bill, statement, personal letter, greeting card, invitation, etc) or an ad (is it from someone l've done business with, were there coupons enclosed) and also if this was something we read and kept, set aside to read later or tossed without reading.

They also needed a record of everything we mailed out but we didn't send anything that week.

At the end of the survey I sent back the diary with all of our envelopes that we had received in the mail that week. I also included our junk mail.

This exercise really reinforced how few important things come in our mail each week. They could go to 2 or 3 times a week and that would be fine.

As incentive for keeping the diary we had a choice of $40 or 100 stamps. I know the stamps are worth more but it would take me years to use 100 stamps so we chose the $40.

We've been a Neilsen TV family, we recently did an Arbitron radio diary and now we did a USPS diary. We must be a correct demographic for these things.

[Walt34]

It depends on where one lives. Here in West Virginia it would be a true hardship on large numbers of people to have to go somewhere else for their mail. Not everyone lives in a densely populated area.

I chatted recently with our mail carrier. She was coming much later than usual, often after 7:00 PM because of a recent closing of a local mail sorting facility so they don't get that day's mail until after 10:00 AM some days. She emphasized that it was upsetting a lot of people because they still get checks in the mail, their utility bills come in the mail, and the like.

We still pay our utilities with checks and snail mail because the utilities want to charge $2 each time for online bill-paying. So if they're going to be stupid like that I'll mail them a check in an envelope that they have to pay someone to open and process.

[Midpack]

And the USPS active attempts to increase/encourage junk mail to improve revenue over the past several years doesn't make me sympathetic to their financial challenges...YMMV

[MichaelB]

Don't know much about the Canadian Post, but it sure has a tough job with so much territory to cover.

I think the US postal system is the greatest and has done an amazing job over the past centuries, and is without doubt one of the great enablers of our development as a country. The first class stamp is a bargain, thanks to all that junk mail businesses still pay to send. I hope the USPS finds a way to continue contributing and in around for many more generations.

[jon-nyc]

Looks like some who have commented didn't read the link. They aren't ending mail service, just delivery to the individual address. You'd still need to go to a community box to pick up your junk mail and the occasional important item.

While I understand this move, its hardly something I'd prefer. Its bad enough walking to your own mailbox for your junk mail, I wouldn't want to go a couple block away to do it.

[Gumby]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MichaelB I think the US postal system is the greatest and has done an amazing job over the past centuries, and is without doubt one of the great enablers of our development as a country.

So important that it is expressly contemplated in the U.S. Constitution, while much that the government does is not.

"The Congress shall have Power To . . . establish Post Offices and Post Roads;" (Article I, Section 8),

[Dawg52]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Walt34 We still pay our utilities with checks and snail mail because the utilities want to charge $2 each time for online bill-paying. So if they're going to be stupid like that I'll mail them a check in an envelope that they have to pay someone to open and process.

Our city water does this. They even want to charge for an email bill. I just let them mail me one and I mail a check back. Power and gas gladly emails a bill and accepts online payments without a fee.

[Walt34]

Another reason we do it is that we have one computer at home and I don't want to put ourselves in a position where we can't pay the utilities if that computer goes down and the backups don't work.

So if that happens we'll just revert to a hand spreadsheet like we used to do while we dilly-dally around to moving back into the 21st century.

[meierlde]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jon-nyc Looks like some who have commented didn't read the link. They aren't ending mail service, just delivery to the individual address. You'd still need to go to a community box to pick up your junk mail and the occasional important item. While I understand this move, its hardly something I'd prefer. Its bad enough walking to your own mailbox for your junk mail, I wouldn't want to go a couple block away to do it.

As has been pointed out newer developments in the US have had cluster mailboxes for a good while (where I live was developed in 1986). Earlier they moved from door to door delivery to rural style mailboxes in suburban areas (where I used to live developed in 1975). So the main issue in older areas would be finding the space to put the cluster mail boxes.
However there is one nice feature that cluster boxes have that other outdoor mailboxes do not a lock on the box. (The postman has a key to unlock the back and access all the boxes, the recipient has a key for their box). For large items there are a couple of large boxes, that they put the parcel in and put the key in the individual box.
In addition of course this minimizes the chance of dog interactions with postal workers.
So nothing new here. Also in at least parts of the US the post office does not go off paved roads, so your box might be a mile from the house anyway.

[jon-nyc]

It isn't new here of course, and I've lived in developments that had them. But that was in areas where you drive or walk past the common box on your way to your home.


But when you retrofit the idea into a more dense urban environment it'll be a different story, at least I suppose it would be.

[LoneAspen]

99% of everything I receive in my mailboxes (both the one at the house, and PO box I have) goes into the garbage.

It's so bad I would pay the postal service an EXTRA monthly fee NOT to receive it. How's that for generating revenue, Postmaster...are you listening?

I especially hate those stupid bundles of flyers that come every week. I just reach into the box, grab them all up, and toss them in the recycling.

As far as mailing anything, I use online banking exclusively, except for my rent payment because the property manager doesn't have an online system. So I have to write one stupid check every month and mail it off. If I didn't have that to do, I'd probably never buy another stamp again.

And speaking of stamps, the postal services seem to be one of the few entities that try to totally break the laws of supply and demand...the less demand there is for their services, the MORE they increase the price of a stamp. Unbelievable.

[Greencheese]

Can't say I'd be sad, once all my bills are set up for online bill pay I never really get mail outside of tons of coupons and booklets for random community things.