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]

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]

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]

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...

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?

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]

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

That is correct.

http://www.canadapost.ca/cpo/mc/assets/pdf/personal/rmb_guidelines_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]

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]

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]

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.

 

[Midpack]

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),

Though there are lots of ridiculous things in the Constitution that were amended out. I seriously doubt USPS will bear any resemblance to what we grew up with in 100 years. The only question is how/when they'll evolve meaningfully IMO.

 

[kombat]

I honestly don't understand how the various postal services are crying poor in 2013. Parcel traffic has never been higher, what with the explosion in online shopping.

I understand they cite falling lettermail business as the cause, but it seems to me that the lettermail business would be the least profitable aspect of a postal service. Frankly, I don't understand how they make any money at all transporting an envelope from Halifax to Vancouver for $0.58 or whatever it is currently. Where's the profit in that?

Canada Post has minimal overhead. I can't jump in my car and drive to the nearest "Canada Post Store" - there's no such thing around here. They just lease a counter in Shoppers Drug Mart. And they can pretty much charge whatever they want. If I'm shipping a parcel, I have absolutely no way of knowing what it's going to cost before I bring it in to Canada Post. They put it on their scale, take a quick measurement with their tape-measure, punch in the postal code, and say, "That'll be $12.37 for 2 business days, or $8.71 for 4 business days."

What am I going to say? "Uh, are you sure that's right? I'm pretty sure the 2 day with insurance, no signature, 8"x12"x10" parcel under 675 grams should only be $11.19" Heck no! We're at their mercy. Whatever they say it costs, is what it costs. We just shut up and pay it.

And they're still losing money I don't get it.

 

[target2019]

In the US I know that the uspo is overstaffed in many areas. It just doesn't operate like a modern business. That is not to say that some geolocations really need this service.

In our area the content is primarily junk mail and if it was delivered every other day there would be no regrets here.

 

[kombat]

In the US I know that the uspo is overstaffed in many areas.

That'd be nice. My neighborhood Canada Post outlet (in one of the aforementioned Shoppers Drug Marts) is consistently staffed by a single employee. A friendly, elderly, Indian gentleman. Nice guy, but man is he ever slow. Going there to mail/pick up a parcel is positively maddening.

If there's a lineup of 5-6 people, I know it's going to be a good 10-15 minute wait. It's agonizingly painful. One by one, the customers go up, put their parcel on the counter, he weighs it, measures it, punches some keys on the computer, quotes a couple different prices, the person thinks about it, asks some questions, thinks about it some more, decides which option they want, then the Postie does a bunch more typing, a few stickers and reciepts come out of the various printers as the customer fumbles with the debit machine.

The whole time, I just want to scream. On a couple of occasions, I've had to mail some paperwork. I mail the same size & weight letter quite often, so I know exactly what it costs ($1.56). Yet with 10 people in front of me, I know it's going to take at least 20 minutes. I've seriously been tempted - multiple times - to step out of line and say to the crowd, "If you let me go ahead of you and I take more than 10 seconds, I'll give every one of you $100." I'd place the envelope on the counter, slap a toonie ($2 coin) on top, and say "Keep the change."

Alas, I'm (thus far) not that bold.

 

[MichaelB]

The whole time, I just want to scream. On a couple of occasions, I've had to mail some paperwork. I mail the same size & weight letter quite often, so I know exactly what it costs ($1.56). Yet with 10 people in front of me, I know it's going to take at least 20 minutes. I've seriously been tempted - multiple times - to step out of line and say to the crowd, "If you let me go ahead of you and I take more than 10 seconds, I'll give every one of you $100." I'd place the envelope on the counter, slap a toonie ($2 coin) on top, and say "Keep the change."

Here in the US I would just buy stamps in block, put that much postage on the envelop and drop it off. No need to wait in line for that.