[Denny]

When you look at truck fleets, the postal service stands out. I think the U.S.P.S. alone has over half a million light duty trucks for mail delivery. If the routes were reworked so each home got mail each second day, that would shave fuel use. Maybe hundreds of millions of dollars savings each year.

I used to work as a post office supervisor in Toronto and we had over 1500 small delivery trucks there alone, and most of our 3,000 area letter carriers used their own cars on top of that.

I used to look forward the checking the mail each day, but now it doesn't seem very important as I can get email correspondence, even bills come that way.

It wouldn't bother me if my mail came every second day. The post office can easily design routes so typical (not home based) businesses could get mail daily from arterial delivery and homes every second.

How about you? Would it bother you in any way?

[captain_ignorant]

How about a modified delivery system?
I used to live in a town where the mail was delivered to the local post office daily and everyone from the town and the surrounding farms had to go and collect from there. You chose how often to go and get it. The further people had to travel to the office the less often they collected.

[kokoda]

All I get are bills ... I couldn't care less if they never delivered them.

[pedalling_faster]

we didn't have mail delivery last Wednesday, the 9th.
the route involves 12 miles of walking and is not popular.
we survived !

i went to the annex where all the mail is sorted to
get a new mailbox key yesterday, the 11th. while
i was waiting, being that this was the first time i had
"seen the inside" of one of these places, i just watched
them work.

looks like a tough job. every mail person stands at a
2 or 3 sided station with a few hundred cubby-holes,
just sorting and sorting. i asked the person who was
helping me if these were the same people who deliver.
Yep.

i like the idea of paying mail-people by the piece of
mail. give them 4 cents or 5 cents for every piece of
letter size mail sorted. sort 4000 pieces of mail,
make a decent wage.

yes, even if sending a letter costs 45 cents.

if you pay a bill for $100, who cares if the stamp
costs 41 cents or 45 cents ?

the alternate-day mail delivery is a good idea.

[SpringCreekFarm]

There is a huge volume of advertising in today's mail that makes up what a mail carrier delivers.

With that kind of volume, delivery every other day would overburden the mail carriers. I know this because my family has been doing it for about 60 years in this area and I've helped deliver mail. It's a big job to get all that mail out every day across the country.

I suppose Canada Post could cut out delivering advertising but then that would take away a large part of the revenue required to subsidize the ridicoulously low cost of sending mail.

As much as people complain about the cost of courier service, it is very inexpensive if you consider how much it would be to drive the package there yourself.

There is also the part about the mail people only working every other day. That is no way to make a living and people likely would not do it.

The mail person would be expected to deliver ALL the mail every other day for half the wage? Have you considered this and would anyone do this? I wouldn't.

I see our local mail service becoming VERY important as we pass into this next stage of harder times. I think we should look at it to see what inefficiencies we can eliminate but I don't think we should gut it.

If we want to seriously cut fuel consumption and make our transportation more efficient, then we have to get more product on to rail cars and move more of it at once. What it would mean for the consumer is that we sacrifice some convenience for efficiency's sake. There would be a drastic reduction in JIT ( just in time ) delivery.

Trouble is, no matter where you make the changes, it upsets someones livelihood and that is always a bummer.

[Denny]

There is a huge volume of advertising in today's mail that makes up what a mail carrier delivers.

With that kind of volume, delivery every other day would overburden the mail carriers. I know this because my family has been doing it for about 60 years in this area and I've helped deliver mail. It's a big job to get all that mail out every day across the country.

The mail person would be expected to deliver ALL the mail every other day for half the wage? Have you considered this and would anyone do this? I wouldn't.

I see our local mail service becoming VERY important as we pass into this next stage of harder times. I think we should look at it to see what inefficiencies we can eliminate but I don't think we should gut it.

Trouble is, no matter where you make the changes, it upsets someones livelihood and that is always a bummer.

Sorry, but I meant each route would be split into two parts, with with only half the destinations going out each day. So, the mail carried each day would be about the same, just half the addresses serviced, which would make the carriers job quicker, not harder. (At least until the post office scooped back the savings and added some more points of delivery to offset the time saved.) I recall at Canada Post, we in essence did have a segregations within each route, each letter carrier had an "AM" - all businesses and some homes. And a "PM" - strictly homes. I'm not sure if all post offices do it this way.

I see your point about package delivery, I think you are correct, especially with the breadth of internet purchasing available. I remember, as a kid, people didn't always lug packages home from the department store, they'd be delivered next day - no charge. Because a lot of people went shopping downtown on the bus or streetcar. Maybe its time to go back to the future!

The trouble is these days, most people are out of the home through the day, cannot receive valuable packages.

I also remember when we had milk delivery to the door every day, and then it shifted to be every other day, and then it disappeared.

[TheDude]

USPS has a page on reducing their Greenhouse Gas Emissions.

The Postal Service operates the nation’s largest alternative fuel capable fleet, including more than 36,000 E-85 flex-fuel vehicles that can operate on gasoline, E-85, or any mixture of the two fuels. In 2007 the Postal Service was again honored with a White House Closing the Circle Award for its support of alternative fuel vehicles (AFV). The Postal Service is working with the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Clean Cities Program to determine the best places to put its E85 vehicles. A database linking alternate fuel vehicles, ethanol stations, and delivery data has been created for the identification and strategic management of E85 fuel use.

Most mail carriers around here have to provide their own wheels, though. Mine has a SUV...in Portland they use a car to get to different parts of town, then deliver on foot, which makes more sense since there are lots of apartments etc (not the case where I live now).

[deMolay]

How about just completely ending all home mail delivery and just pick it up yourself. Here in rural Alberta we pick it up when ever we make it to town ourselves. Not even a rural mailbox. End the waste end the home personal delivery of mail.

[dinopello]

I'm fine with less frequent delivery. Many routes here are done on foot though. The dogs would probably miss the daily mail slot activity

[deMolay]

How about no mail delivery, pick it up yourself, and fire all the letter carriers and give us all who don't get mail delivery a tax break.

[Chesire]

Yeah right , if the canatard postal system is anything like the mericatard postal system. Getting even an iota of change past the unions will be impossible. No change is happening until its forced by loss of govmint revenues. Fortunately that 25 % property value decrease and the subsequent lower echelon Fedstapo agents getting thrown under the bus. Along with increasing food and fuel prices should force downsizing on agencies. Will be fun to watch the dominoes topple , along with squealing of the pigs and the bleating of the sheep . Once they are told no more taxpayer filled troughs for you parasites to slurp out of.

[Blacksmith]

I live in rural Alberta and we have to go either to a local lock box or into town to get our mail. The lock box gets letters and small packages while our Post Box in town has my busness mail and large packages.

I hesitate to advocate the same system for the whole country because of the large number of people employed by the postal service.

[Keith_McClary]

I live in a town of 2000 people.

We don't have a letter carrier walking door-to-door to deliver our mail.

So we all have to drive our pickup trucks to the post office every day.

[MD]

... If the routes were reworked so each home got mail each second day, that would shave fuel use. Maybe hundreds of millions of dollars savings each year.

Not as much as you would think. Rural routes that are so long that the vehicles already go out lightly loaded would benefit, but that's a small percentage of the entire mail load. The high density routes would see almost no benefit at all. If fact, some routes could actually end up costing more.

No easy button!

[oneplain1]

how about cluster boxes placed every 1/4 to 1/2 mile apart?

[eastbay]

Huge group boxes ... heck no. The druggies would find them easy pickin's.

A few ideas. How about weekly delivery. Ban ALL advertising mail, especially the political trash. Raise letter rates high enough to offer a real incentive for people to do their bill paying electronically.

I mean seriously. This system can't possibly survive for long as it's currently structured. I receive nothing that can't be put off for a week or two and junk mail is a perfect example of gluttony.

[Keith_McClary]

It's been suggested that it is very inefficient for the post office to run around the country delivering and picking up mail. It would be much more efficient if everyone would pick up and drop off their mail at a central location, such as Bismarck, North Dakota.

[joeltrout]

It already takes 5 days for mail to get to Oklahoma City from Los Angeles. Dont delay it even more.

joeltrout

[FiniteQuantity]

How about just completely ending all home mail delivery and just pick it up yourself. Here in rural Alberta we pick it up when ever we make it to town ourselves. Not even a rural mailbox. End the waste end the home personal delivery of mail.

I'd like to see UPS and FedEx implement something like this. Technically you can have stuff "held for pickup" with both, but they couldn't handle everyone doing it at the present time. But that would presumably save them a lot of gas money.

Ironically, while both are fantastic at tracking a package as it moves across the country from a vendor to your doorstep, with their current setup, when it is held for pickup in their warehouse they both have a difficult time locating it.

[Kingcoal]

How about every other day everything. In other words, every other day is a day off for everyone.

Back in the fifties, they were predicting that in the future we'd only be working about 10 hours a week. If you think about it, what's the mad rush? It'll be there tommorow. We have huge factory farms growing our food and producing huge surpluses (when they aren't making ethanol with it.) Why are we working so hard?

I think the explanation is simple; about 20% of the population does most of the work. The rest are either living off dividends, laying in the street, pumping out babies, etc. Most of the population lives off those who work and produce value, invention, inovation or just make sure the toilets are clean. The rich don't work everyday, the poor don't, it's the middle class who is expected to take care of all the babies.