In many cases it the only thing that allows a little town to still officially exist. I worked for the USPS as an environmental consultant few years back. Talking with some of the small office postmasters it became apparent for some of these small towns the PO is all they had left. As one PM told me, “They closed the school, the trains don’t stop here anymore and the interstate passed us by. The PO is all we have that still makes us a town”. It was kind of sad, but didn’t engender a good business model for the postal service.
Towns are overrated.
*grin*
I understand some people need to live in closely packed communities for many reasons (social, economic, and convenience come immediately to mind), and I have lived in major population centers, but looking back, I wonder why.
Green acres is the place for me.
Farm livin' is the life for me.
Land spreadin' out so far and wide
Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside.
Here's what I'd do:
1. Automate as much as possible. Pulling the stamp machines, scales and other stuff that allowed people to self serve hurt them.
2. Go to three days a week delivery. One route on one day, a different route on the next. That cuts the number of miles driven in half, and would at most delay delivery by one day. MWF for one route, TTS for the other. Flip the days the next week.
3. About fifteen years ago, the USPS started doing rural route delivery. You can keep the post office and a few employees, but go back to PO Boxes in small towns. I know of guys who drive a couple of hours to cover something like ten houses.