Posted on 12/17/2013 12:41:41 PM PST by TurboZamboni
Dec 11 (Reuters) - Canada's postal service will phase out urban home delivery within five years and hike the cost of postage stamps to try to stem soaring losses, the post office said on Wednesday. Canada Post, like the U.S. Postal Service, is suffering as customers switch to digital communications. In August it said it was on track to run short of cash by the middle of 2014 unless major changes were made. The government-owned corporation - which has a mandate to be self-financing - last month reported a third-quarter loss of C$109 million ($103 million) before tax and said mail volumes had fallen 7.3 percent from the same period in 2012. It must also deal with a C$6.5 billion deficit in its pension plan.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Glad to hear that. I am afraid to go out anywhere alone anymore.
What they call super mailboxes which cover a group of home addresses. That has been the default end point for mail for any new housing in Canada for quite a while now. Door to door delivery has been grandfathered since the first super mailboxes began to appear. Apartments and condos have a group mailbox same thing for everyone now. The grandfathering is ending basically. Packages too big for the mailbox still get delivered to the door but of course there is much more revenue there than a simple letter. The elderly and disabled are the ones raising a fuss over this now but again only in grandfathered urban centers where door to door still exists. They figure the phase out will take about 5 years or so.
You’re right — also community mailboxes in every neighborhood. Only older, urban neighborhoods have had home delivery for the past three decades. Only about 1/3 of households receive home delivery now. This is just the next logical step. BTW, the community mailboxes work well. They aren’t a big inconvenience, and they’re much more secure than a mailbox tacked to the side of your house, or on a post at the end of your driveway.
Easier done by simply allowing competition to deliver the mail. I bet you could do it profitably.
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