The US Postal Service has a fleet of about 220,000 vehicles. The Link Let’s assume for the moment the average fuel economy across the fleet is 15 mpg, and that the average vehicle logs 15 miles daily on its route. So at $4.00 per gallon gas, each vehicle burns $4.00 a day. Annualized for the fleet the fuel budget is $4.00 x 312 mail days x 220,000 vehicles, or $274,560,000 spent yearly on fuel for the USPS. What if the USPS: a) stopped delivering mail on Saturdays completely, and b) only delivered mail on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. But I need my mail every day! Fair enough. You are welcome to swing by the post office at any time on Tuesday, Thursday, or Saturday and pick it up yourself. If this plan were to start today, I bet fewer than 10% of postal customers would have to have their mail bad enough they would come in and pick it up, rather than just wait until the next mail day. So basically here is an opportunity to cut about 50% from the fuel budget of the USPS for a savings of roughly $137,280,000 on fuel alone. Would it be safe to assume that 50% of the work for the fleet would translate to 50% of the maintenance budget? Let’s say the current budget for maintenance is $1,000 per vehicle, per year. So at $500 per vehicle, per year, we can tack on another $110,000,000 in savings. Now we are up to almost $250,000,000 in combined annual savings. Now let’s talk about the buzzword du jour, the “carbon footprint”. According to this nifty calculator, The Link by cutting 50% of the work from the USPS fleet, 700,920,000 fewer pounds of CO2 would be released into the Earth’s atmosphere every year. Pretty substantial. I'm looking at you, Al Gore. Would it work? Where should the savings go? Thoughts?
I've always heard that they deliver on Saturdays because if they don't, the mail would get too backlogged and you'd see delivery dates pushed back exponentially.
actually, i think that is a good idea. the post office is kind of a joke anyway. i know it sounds like im stealing from a seinfeld episode but its true, i do not receive anything in the mail at my home other than catalogs. i receive copies of bills but i actually pay them online through transfers. these bills and the paper and resources and money used by these companies could be greatly reduced.
If mail ain't getting delivered, no need to have all that dead weight sitting around with no deliveries going out. Don't USPS workers have a union? How do you think that they woudl feel about a sig number or postal workers are asked to cut their hours back so much?
I think the bigger issue would be what would the tens of thousands of USPS employees that deliver mail every day do? Lots of jobs lost in that scenario. _________________________________________________ They could go work for UPS, Fed Ex, etc.
The Constitution requires the government to maintain "post roads". What does that mean in the 21st century? To me, it means landlines and routers.
If you really want to cut costs you have some people get mail MWF and others get mail TTS. You could cut the fleet and number of carriers in half. Not saying Im for this but we do have a huge deficit and need so start cutting back across the board. China is going to own our *** - literally.
If you want to stop catalog delivery, try this. Stop the Madness I've been doing this since last fall. It has stopped some of them. Some of them just keep sending (bas - tards). And it requires some effort (input information). However, it is better than nothing.
If the junk mail stopped, the USPS would collapse financially. Thats like 97% of their revenue. Our mail system has always been a good part social service - both as providing means to communcation for people (mostly to those who live in rural areas) as well as providing tons of good-paying jobs to folks that would otherwise have few career options. Its another form of welfare in that regard. I say this as someone from a family of postal workers (mom, dad, brother, two uncles, cousin, grandfather).
If delivery started taking longer because of days off, then many people would want the USPS to lower postal rates. If its taking 33% longer to get to the destination, then the rates should be lowered 33%.
What are people going to do when they need to get 20% off at Bed, Bath, and Beyond on a Tuesday or Thursday? Will we only get 3 coupons per week, or will we get 2 on each delivery day? This is very important.
After 21 years in the Air Force, I retired and was hired by the Post Office as a letter carrier (5 years now). ....so many things to reply to from reading this thread. 1st off, the majority of postal vehicles are still gasoline powered. There are very few stations (Midwest city, Ok is one), which run on either Natural gas or gasoline. 15 mpg is WAY too high an estimate of fuel mileage. My fuel tank holds about 13.5 gallons, and I get just under 100 miles per tank due to stop and go (shut off at businesses due to regulations). Someone told me that when gas goes up just one penny per gallon, it costs the USPS millions per year. As far as the work week goes... it would be very advantageous for the USPS to go to a 5 day work week. I work 5 regular days a week, with a floating day off(and Sunday off). We have a "floater" whose job it is to work the regular carrier's day off. They have a "string" of 5 routes that they carry off of. That is their "regular" job. Working Monday-Friday would eliminate the need for floaters, which would be 1 out of every 6 carriers, clerks, mail handlers, etc. Sounds good to me, my job is safe (since I'm a vet). BUT... here's the problem with that as I see it. Less carriers means less "dues" for the Union. The union is HIGHLY opposed to it. I guess it doesn't matter that in the long run, it can help the "bottom line" of the Post Office... which would, in turn, be benificial to all Postal employees. As far as the USPS and it's purpose.... there is NO private "contractors" or business that can do what the Post office does. The automation, transportation routes, mail handling equipment... hell, just the overall "synchronization" of it is amazing. You probably didn't even know it, but we deliver a HUGE amount of DHL and UPS ground parcels. On a personal note, I miss the traveling of the Air Force. I miss the people I worked with. I don't miss worrying about my Airmen and Sergeants who found it necessary to get into trouble..... the babysitting. I enjoy my job now carrying mail... it pays very well... and when I'm done, I'm done and I go home with no worries. btw, remember your letter carrier at Christmas!!! G
Ha! I enjoyed the comment about the daily Bed, Bath, and Beyond coupons. I get my mail out of the mailbox and stop at the trash/recycling bin in the garage as I'm walking back into the house. I don't even bother bringing the ******** back in the house with me. Lots of days, I leave my mailbox (out by the curb) with a big stack of mail, and I walk back inside empty-handed. I don't think the whole, gigantic postal system was invented to be a vehicle for corporations to hit me up with TONS of wasteful, unsolicited catalogs and flyers day after day, year after year, right up until I die (and likely for a decade after that!!!). I love the idea in the original post. Hell, 3 days a week would be plenty. Daily mail delivery just adds to the background of non-stop advertising that fills up landfills with garbage and lowers my quality of life.
