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| Topic: Hundreds of Post Offices Could Soon Close | |
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Hundreds of Post Offices Could Soon Close The Postal Service has marked 677 post offices nationwide for possible closure or consolidation, according to a document given today to a House subcommittee holding a hearing on the future of American mail delivery. Among them are 10 post offices in the District and three in the Maryland suburbs of Hyattsville, Rockville and Silver Spring. Click here for the full list of possible post office closures “The writing is on the wall and the postal service obviously has to make some tough decisions if it wants to weather this storm," Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) told Postal officials during the hearing. “You better believe that if those post offices have to be closed I’m going to be besieged by people asking, ‘Please don’t close my post office,’” she said later. Postal and Congressional sources said privately that only about 200 of the 677 postal facilities are likely to be closed after a review. Regardless, several lawmakers criticized Postal officials for not informing them about possible closures, cutbacks in service hours and the removal of mailboxes. “I’m afraid the Postal Service leadership has lept to the conclusion that the only way to keep the Postal Service solvent is to cut back on hours of operation," said Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), who noted that many of his constituents have long commutes and cannot get to post offices before they close in the late afternoon. The House subcommittee that oversees the Postal Service today reviewed the various options as the Postal Service struggles amid sharply declining mail volume and the gradual migration to e-mail and online payment systems. As The Eye reported in today's Post, the Government Accountability Office added the Postal Service to its list of high-risk government agencies and programs on Tuesday and has urged a rapid overhaul that includes layoffs, plant closures and changes to retiree health benefits. Source |
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It's already started.
Last week they bulldozed the small post office a mile and a half from me. A lot of people had to install mailboxes when it closed last month and they lost their PO boxes. I believe that a lot of the smaller offices are privately owned. |
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It's already started. Last week they bulldozed the small post office a mile and a half from me. A lot of people had to install mailboxes when it closed last month and they lost their PO boxes. I believe that a lot of the smaller offices are privately owned. Technically they are in privately owned businesses, but essentially the space is rented to the postal service. We used to have one just down the street in a stationary store. I'm not surprised in the least. The internet is killing many businesses off and forcing change in every segment of the marketplace. With email being free there is no reason to mail most correspondence anymore. They've been losing money hand over fist for years. |
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What Andrew said is correct. Everybody is emailing instead of sending letters. People are also paying bills on-line instead of mailing them. You can pay bills by phone too.
I've noticed, too, that children aren't mailing thank you notes for their presents like they used to do. |
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The post office keeps shooting themselves in the foot. Constantly raising rates and not keeping up with current trends and customer needs. They have become largely irrelevant. I think it is time to privatize the USPS.
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The post office keeps shooting themselves in the foot. Constantly raising rates and not keeping up with current trends and customer needs. They have become largely irrelevant. I think it is time to privatize the USPS. Yes with the advent of the internet the postal service has lost a lot of business. And with the way the economy is and businesses closing they have lost even more. Everyone complains about the rates going up. So is the price of everything else. The postal service has one of the largest fleets of vehicles in the country, when gas prices go up that really has an adverse effect, and costs the post office billions when it just goes up a few pennies. And I know some think that the government subsodised the postal service but they dont. All salaries, gas, maintanance, and everything is paid for from postage. Just what current trends and customer needs are you refering to? The bigest argument against privatizing is that then anyone will be able to walk up to your mailbox and put what they want in it. You think you get a lot of junk mail now, wait and see if they privatize it. |
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The post office keeps shooting themselves in the foot. Constantly raising rates and not keeping up with current trends and customer needs. They have become largely irrelevant. I think it is time to privatize the USPS. Yes with the advent of the internet the postal service has lost a lot of business. And with the way the economy is and businesses closing they have lost even more. Everyone complains about the rates going up. So is the price of everything else. The postal service has one of the largest fleets of vehicles in the country, when gas prices go up that really has an adverse effect, and costs the post office billions when it just goes up a few pennies. And I know some think that the government subsodised the postal service but they dont. All salaries, gas, maintanance, and everything is paid for from postage. Just what current trends and customer needs are you refering to? The bigest argument against privatizing is that then anyone will be able to walk up to your mailbox and put what they want in it. You think you get a lot of junk mail now, wait and see if they privatize it. I agree with that, I would never want to see the postal service privatized. I may not always trust the government, but I trust private companies less when it comes to something like this. |
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WHERE THE HELL CAN I GET STAMPS!?
You know, bills are still sent thru the mail, not everything has been computerized. So now I have to go out of my way to spend 50 cents just so I can pay my bills. Wonderful  And I still like getting hand written letters in the mail too. Email is only good for so much, but letters are personalized and cool. 
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WHERE THE HELL CAN I GET STAMPS!? leave a note for your letter carrier to give you a stamps by mail form. Fill it out, mail it and you will have stamps delievered to your door. |
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WHERE THE HELL CAN I GET STAMPS!? You know, bills are still sent thru the mail, not everything has been computerized. So now I have to go out of my way to spend 50 cents just so I can pay my bills. Wonderful And I still like getting hand written letters in the mail too. Email is only good for so much, but letters are personalized and cool. You can pay some bills over the phone. They deduct it from your checking account. |
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The post office keeps shooting themselves in the foot. Constantly raising rates and not keeping up with current trends and customer needs. They have become largely irrelevant. I think it is time to privatize the USPS. No, they are doing business, as they are not a government agency. It's a fine line but essentially, they are like a government owned corporation. you know, like GM. The USPS has been losing money. This means they need to increase profits (duh) and there are three ways to do this: cut costs (been done), increase sales (we've already covered this is going in reverse), and raising prices. They have been using both options 1 and 3 and neither is saving them. They are a sinking ship that cannot be saved at this point - even full privatization will ultimately fail or become very, very expensive to mail correspondence. |
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Putting more people out of work.
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Edited by
Atlantis75
on
Sat 08/01/09 10:34 PM
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What Andrew said is correct. Everybody is emailing instead of sending letters. People are also paying bills on-line instead of mailing them. You can pay bills by phone too. I've noticed, too, that children aren't mailing thank you notes for their presents like they used to do. Even in the time of emails and text messages. i did get a mail from someone I used to talk to a while ago. She sent me her picture and hand written letter. It means a lot to me if someone goes out and takes on all the hassle of writing a letter by hand and mailing it. |
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Edited by
Winx
on
Sat 08/01/09 11:00 PM
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What Andrew said is correct. Everybody is emailing instead of sending letters. People are also paying bills on-line instead of mailing them. You can pay bills by phone too. I've noticed, too, that children aren't mailing thank you notes for their presents like they used to do. Even in the time of emails and text messages. i did get a mail from someone I used to talk to a while ago. She sent me her picture and hand written letter. It means a lot to me if someone goes out and takes on all the hassle of writing a letter by hand and mailing it. It really does mean a lot more to receive letters in the mail then it does to receive emails or text messages. I've saved all of the letters that my Grandmother sent me when I was away at college. She's gone now and I treasure them. I saved the ones that my parents wrote too. I prefer birthday cards in my mailbox and not in my email. |
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What Andrew said is correct. Everybody is emailing instead of sending letters. People are also paying bills on-line instead of mailing them. You can pay bills by phone too. I've noticed, too, that children aren't mailing thank you notes for their presents like they used to do. Even in the time of emails and text messages. i did get a mail from someone I used to talk to a while ago. She sent me her picture and hand written letter. It means a lot to me if someone goes out and takes on all the hassle of writing a letter by hand and mailing it. It really does mean a lot more to receive letters in the mail then it does to receive emails or text messages. I've saved all of the letters that my Grandmother sent me when I was away at college. She's gone now and I treasure them. I saved the ones that my parents wrote too. I prefer birthday cards in my mailbox and not in my email. Never cared about cards and letters. I love the efficiency of the internet. The people I care about are right there at the click of a button. Amazing... I would prefer one efficient company to several inefficient companies, but that's just me. |
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WHERE THE HELL CAN I GET STAMPS!? Some grocery stores sell stamps. I think CVS and Rite-Aid sell them, also. |
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Edited by
ThomasJB
on
Sun 08/02/09 05:20 PM
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It is still a semi-government organization and the government will not allow them to fail even if means they will have to throw billions of dollars at the problem just to prop them up. How many times have they raised rates and still hasn't brought them out of their free-fall. Raising rates is not working for them and it is not endearing them to their customers. They lack the efficiencies and cost controls of their fully private brethren and they do not have to answer directly to their customers. Frankly I and many other put more trust in private package carriers than the USPS.
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A good friend of mine is a works for the post office. He is telling me the Post Office is deleting people and increasing the routes for others. Your mail might be late this winter..jmo
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Edited by
TJN
on
Sun 08/02/09 06:09 PM
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It is still a semi-government organization and the government will not allow them to fail even if means they will have to throw billions of dollars at the problem just to prop them up. How many times have they raised rates and still hasn't brought them out of their free-fall. Raising rates is not working for them and it is not endearing them to their customers. They lack the efficiencies and cost controls of their fully private brethren and they do not have to answer directly to their customers. Frankly I and many other put more trust in private package carriers than the USPS. Like cabot said they are taking drastic measures to break even. they have been voted the most trusted agency in the country for years, that comes straight from the customers themselves. I hate to see someone with such aingst towards the postal service, we try to provide the best serice we can. times are tough for most businesses in this country, why would you think the postal service is any different. |
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People still sent birthday cards and Christmas cards, at the very least. E-cards are just not the same.
But online bill pay is some thing I really like. With my family half a continent away, I much prefer email over letters. Why wait a week to find out how a surgery went or how vacation was or what's new in their lives? |
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