USPS Closings

From USA Today:
"Postal Service lists 3,700 branches for possible closing"

The Postal Service is looking at about 3,700 post offices with low sales and few customers for possible elimination as early as January, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said Tuesday. Most of those under review take in less than $27,500 a year and have only enough customers and mail to keep them busy two hours a day, Donahoe said. Proposals to close any of its estimated 31,000 post offices often meet strong resistance from communities and their representatives in Congress. In January, the Postal Service named 1,400 post offices it wanted to close; 280 are gone. As it closes branches, the Postal Service plans to set up what it calls "village post offices" in supermarkets and gas stations to provide basic services such as stamps and flat-rate package shipping. The Postal Service has cut 110,000 jobs and reduced costs by $11 billion since 2008 to offset a sharp drop in mail as people do more business online. Still, the Postal Service projects a deficit this year of $8.3 billion. First-class mail, one of the largest revenue sources, declined from 103.7 billion pieces in 2001 to 78.2 billion pieces in 2010.

^ I think the USPS should follow Canada Post's example (although without the strikes.) In Canada they use regular businesses for all their services. You can mail anything anywhere you want. The "Village Post Offices" that the USPS wants would only sell stamps and take flat-rate boxes. I don't see why they can't provide all the services that the USPS offers. The USPS still needs to do a lot more than close stores and create VPOs. They need to modernize their staff and equipment and work on Customer Service. No one will continue using the USPS if a letter or box takes a long time to get someplace, costs a lot to send it and then you have to deal with an idiot USPS employee on top of that. I prefer getting and sending regular mail (especially to my dad in Iraq or when my brother was in Iraq and then Afghanistan.) Mail to APO/FPOs should be much cheaper since they are working outside the US to keep us safe - some are even in war zones and risk their lives everyday. Also many people don't know that mail to an APO/FPO address is only handled by the USPS to either New York City or San Francisco and then it is given to the military where it goes to the actual location. Therefore APO/FPO addressed mail should be much cheaper if not free. ^

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2011-07-27-usps-post-office-closing-list_n.htm