How To Fix the Post Office: Alternating Day Delivery & Community Lockers
The US Postal Service lost $5.6B in 2016. Today the Liberal Canadian Federal Government announced that it would not reinstate home delivery of mail and all of the pundits cried… on both sides (see video at the bottom of this message). It is predicted that Canada Post will be loosing $700M per year in the near future. These types of numbers are large enough that citizens just don’t understand them but rest assured, in the end, citizens are going to pay those bills, mostly through increased taxes.
There are many idea’s about how to ‘fix’ the Post Office including:
- Expand even more into parcels
- Eliminate all door to door delivery, buy going to common ‘community mailboxes’ located near street corners instead
- Use the spare small delivery trucks with a “second shift” at night to do “same day” delivery from companies like Amazon, Sobies and Walmart
- Follow the UK example of selling off the Post Office to the private sector with guarantees of universal delivery at a set maximum (stamp) price
Those are all great ideas and should be pursued, but there are two other idea’s that we have never heard anyone else suggest, and I think most reasonable people will get behind.
You can balance any budget shortfall by cutting costs or expanding revenue:
1: Alternating Day Delivery
Most people, even older people do not get ‘real’ mail every day, so why are we paying to have it delivered every day? Why not cut the number of delivery workers in half, delivering mail (to the door or box) on this schedule:
Week 1: Monday Wednesday Friday
Week 2: Tuesday Thursday
With virtually no practical decrease in service, the Post Office would be able to have massive staff cut (160,000 letter carriers the US, and 12,500 letter carriers in Canada) and 33% reduction their small truck fleet.
A rough estimate of the ANNUAL labor savings would be $8.1B (16000 x $51600) in the US and $625M (12500 x $50000) in Canada.