It’s not news that the digital age has had a negative economic effect on the United States Postal Service (USPS). This past March, Postmaster General David Steiner stated to elected officials that deliveries may have to end by February 2027. In order to avoid this, Steiner stated in his June statement to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, “We are borrowing from our employees’ retirement funds to continue operations. I am not comfortable with that, our employees are not comfortable with that, and those of you in Congress should also not be comfortable with that.” This strategy is predicted to delay the crisis at least four years.
Evidence of the USPS belt tightening has been noticed recently as collection times at public mail boxes have changed. In August, I noticed that the USPS collection box on Graham Avenue and Metropolitan Avenue had lost its second collection time. As I spot checked other boxes around the neighborhood I also noticed only one collection time and some pick-up times were moved to earlier.
Reaching out to the community to see if this had been noticed by them, some responders had noticed. Others added they’d observed collection boxes had gone missing.
In a statement from USPS when asked about these changes, they stated, “Like any business organization, the Postal Service periodically reviews processes and procedures to identify opportunities to increase efficiency. In northern Brooklyn, we have been aligning collection box times with local carrier routes and times to eliminate multiple trips per day to the same neighborhood. This may be why you see adjustments to pick-up times. The Postal Service also performs regular volume testing on collection boxes to gauge usage. However, there have been no permanent removals of Postal Service blue collection boxes in northern Brooklyn recently.”
Locations of three missing boxes were asked about: North 6th Street and Driggs is reported to be “Temporarily Out of Service – Lock Malfunction”; Morgan Avenue and Driggs Avenue, USPS said, “this was not a collection box, but a Relay Box, which allowed carriers to store undelivered mail in a secure, locked container so they don’t have to carry it all at once.”; and North 7th and Bedford Avenue, USPS said, “no record of a collection box being at this location.” The mailbox on North 7th Street was used by me several times — but not in at least ten years.
Remember to check on the collection times. Your mail may not arrive as soon as you expect it to, due to recent changes.
The Greenline 