The USPS claims to have 230,000 vehicles. How much of that environmental footprint could be eradicated?
https://facts.usps.com/postal-service-has-more-than-200000-v...
You cannot dismantle the only mail service that is OBLIGATED to deliver mail to every address. FEDEX and UPS don't deliver out to my wife's grandmother. FEDEX and UPS don't deliver to my Uncle's factory, in the middle of a medium sized town in north east Texas. But the Post Office does.
When you get rid of a government service that has literally served the entire country, and replace it with a profit driven company, you will disrupt the entire country.
As much as I dislike how crappy the delivery of the USPS has become (I still rely on them for a couple clients who don't believe in digital payments even if I discount their invoice, and my wife's and my prescriptions come through the mail), they have been much more consistent and on time than FEDEX or UPS. I'm actually still waiting on a package via FEDEX that has been out for delivery (in California not NY where I live) for about 3 weeks now.
It doesn't, though. I lived ten years at an address they wouldn't deliver to. I had to rent a PO Box in the nearest town to get USPS mail, whereas UPS and FedEx delivered right to my door. I don't know where you're getting your information, but it isn't true.
Your mailbox might not be at your drive way, or on your front step, but a mailbox cluster in a central location.
From the USPS (emphasis mine): > We’re proud to provide secure, reliable and affordable service to every address in the United States, plus its territories and its military and diplomatic installations worldwide.
Yes, it's a hard address which the fire department, for example, can use. And the USPS knew about it.
> Your mailbox might not be at your drive way, or on your front step, but a mailbox cluster in a central location.
My mailbox was in a post office miles away from my house, which I had to pay for. I've since moved.
> They have the legal obligation to deliver to all addresses. Do you have an address that has been assigned by your county?
While that might be true, in practicality it was not. It took me months at two different locations to get USPS to stop screwing things up or to give me access to a cluster. I think a lot of people here have had great experiences with USPS and are unable to imagine geographies where the system doesn't work too well.
That sounds similar, but is significantly different, and can be a major pain when dealing with people or businesses that believe the myth, and try to send important paperwork to a physical address, which may end up in our P.o. box if the USPS person handling it recognizes the name and can match it to a box number.
Putting both the physical and P.o. box addresses into an address block, in that order, works well, but then shippers can balk at finding a box number. (see also “Falsehoods programmers believe about addresses, etc.”)
They will deliver for every mail address. USPS designated non-deliverable addresses are typically new addresses that haven't been added, or as another commenter posted, an address that is unsafe to deliver.
Now, delivering to your mailbox might be a central mail hub that is part of your community/neighborhood, and not directly to your door, but that is still your address's mailbox.
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/when-usps-does-not...
You can if you obligate other national carriers to do that.
The fact is the world has changed dramatically in the last few decades and the kinds of things that are sent are completely different, demands are different, technology has changed rapidly. I don't get anything other than junk mail from the public service, I wish it would stop.
I think an optimal solution might be to actually semi-privatize the USPS, by floating a small % ownership (say 10%) on public exchange, letting them set their own prices and strategy, which would remove recent Republican meddling - and - also remove their impetus as well, as it would be a 'self sustaining' entity, still mostly owned by the Government.
Having a % float would provide some measure of market feedback, this is a tactic used by some very wealthy families to give external measures to their CEO's and have some degree of accountability. I believe Bertelsmann uses this kind of setup.
Aside from that, it could very well be possible to require private carriers to have the same, national coverage in order to be considered 'national carriers' a status which they should have to have to be able to bid on certain contracts etc..
'National Carriers' could have access to things like mail boxes in buildings, and other things, possibly even co-use of USPS facilities, much like government has required last-mile fibre operators to share their gear with competitors (i.e. CLECs).
Something like that could work.
Meanwhile Fedex, Amazon, UPS deliver right to their door. The quality and level of service of USPS is atrocious, and all over America they are cutting back on their last mile commitments while private companies continue to deliver right to the door.
Since around 2013, though, the USPS HAS mandated new communities get a single mail hub, but it still satisfies their rule of delivering for every address.
"Since around 2013, though, the USPS HAS mandated new communities get a single mail hub, but it still satisfies their rule of delivering for every address."
This in no way satisfies delivering to every address. It is a clear break from this commitment.
You can also require TO home delivery (but you will have to fight your HOA), if you are elderly or infirm. The handful of times HOAs have allowed this, there has typically been backlash toward the resident (anecdotes, not data).
No, it has not always been the case that the USPS mandated a reduced level of service to new housing developments. That is a big deal. They are effectively saying that they are not going to support door to door delivery to any housing community in America, regardless of what that housing community wants.
Living in NYC, my mail wasn't delivered to my door. Living in Houston, TX, my mail wasn't delivered to my door. Living in Webster, TX, my mail wasn't delivered to my door. Living in Pasadena, TX my mail wasn't delivered to my door.
My cabin in a small town in Colorado, mail is delivered to a letter box attached to my door (well used to, I have told the USPS to refuse all mail). My house in a small town in upstate NY, mail is delivered to the letter flap in my door. My friend who lives in a neighborhood in NJ built over 30 years ago, has to drive to get his mail because the community board chose no mail boxes.
The end result is the exact same, the USPS just decided to codify exactly what was already happening, so that they could standardize how they were supposed to use those mail rooms.
You are overly simplifying the cause and effect, mailbox down the road != usps delivering mail to everyone, thus I'm living in some fairy tail land that no longer exists.
You honestly do not see the difference between these two statements?
This is false, based on my own experience and the experience of others:
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/when-usps-does-not...
More information:
https://www.uspsoig.gov/blog/postal-service-and-its-obligati...
> But frequency of delivery is the only obligation that is clearly articulated in the Postal Service’s current USO. In fact, the USO is based on a hodgepodge of various legal requirements and regulations that, in most cases, provide only broad guidance. For example, while public access to postal services is another important component of the USO, there’s nothing about how many access points, such as collection boxes or post offices, must exist.
Nothing there about delivering to every address.
> We’re proud to provide secure, reliable and affordable service to every address in the United States, plus its territories and its military and diplomatic installations worldwide.
They say they provide postal service to every address in the United States, so if they are lying, then we as citizens should do something about it. I'm just going off the usps facts website, and what they claim.
Doesn't say delivery to every address.
Forcing some addresses to rent P.O. Boxes is still serving them.
Packages obviously will still be sent for one, but also from a national security perspective it makes no sense to have private businesses running the entire delivery logistics network.
Lastly, if you see the government as enabling an economy for free markets, a state run postal service is a great backbone for that.
When you consider how much of US logistics is done by private companies, I'd say we're pretty much there and always were. Even if you dig into the USPS by itself, how much is done by private contractors? ..especially upstream from the local office.
That last mile of to-the-house delivery is a non-trivial thing but I'm not sure how essential it is.
Restated: it makes no sense to have private businesses running the entire electricity generation and delivery network. Yet here we are.
I suppose this was a restatement to point out a flaw in my previous point, but I do agree with the notion that critical national infrastructure should not involve private businesses.
Just because “here we are”, doesn’t mean it’s where we should be. There are different points of view on this so I don’t expect everyone to agree with this (market efficiencies, etc etc), but I just see it as a solution looking for a problem in many cases.
Downsizing the USPS, putting increasingly more onerous rules on it, then turning around and saying “well look, the private market is already doing so much, let’s just go with that”, seems shortsighted to me.
Single-sourcing electricity or package delivery or precursor raw materials always seems like a near-sighted move even if it is cheaper. There's a false economy to gigantism.
Here is my distillation of arguments for keeping the USPS:
* USPS is required to service areas which may not be covered by other carriers. A handful of commenters note, from first hand experience, that rural inhabitants may have to pick up mail from centralized depots away from their homes.
* USPS transactional mail serves those without internet access. The internet is effectively controlled by a handful of private entities. If internet access was universal and treated like a public utility, it is unclear if this second argument still holds.
Interestingly, nobody brought up mail-in voting and its importance to democracy. Nor is the environmental impact of the USPS apparently worthy of consideration.
My biggest takeaway is that the USPS is a sacred cow. Like the topics of gender and race, it's unwise to ask questions.
In reality there are lots of reasons to keep USPS, being able to get packages to all among them. Parent commenters have done a great job outlining some. I would encourage you to think more critically about reasons we would want a state-run postal system that don’t involve pet causes like union voting blocs.
How is that a "tiny" problem?