Blog Post: Is the postal service another...

Blog Post: Is the postal service another ticking time bomb?

Started on Sep 09, 2011 by Hasani Wheat

This is a conversation about a blog post from Jason Russell: Is the postal service another ticking time bomb?

In case you haven’t heard the United States Postal Service (USPS) is facing an $11 billion deficit this year and is quickly running out of cash. Something needs to be done to salvage a service that we all have come to rely on and employs hundreds of thousands of citizens. Action is needed immediately to restructure USPS, hopefully Washington can act quickly, but how do we feel about the future of the postal service in Northeast Ohio?

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Hasani Wheat
I think that losing the United States Postal Service would be detrimental to cities across the nation. In my neighborhood (Lee-Miles in Cleveland), residents used to rely on two post office branches, one in Maple Heights and one in the Lee-Harvard plaza. Now, the Maple Heights branch is closed and the Lee-Harvard may very well be on the chopping block as a future closure.
I believe implementing GIS and GIS-like programs (ex. mashups) into the restructuring of the USPS would be beneficial. The creation of a system that can store information differentiating the population by need (i.e., people who want to do away with using the USPS altogether, people who need to use the USPS selectively (to get materials that can only be received via delivery service), people who absolutely need to use the postal service, etc.) may help the restructuring.
To engage people, sending and receiving information about updating their preference towards how they would use the USPS like how the Board of Election does when residents from a certain area in a city need to know information about a change in voting location, may be a viable option.
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Posted Sep 09, 2011

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1. Bryce Sylvester
  i have a few thoughts about how the usps needs to move forward. in the short term, i see it as a necessity to stop from delivering mail on saturdays, and maybe even two of the four fridays every month. yes, this may cut down on labor hours for post office workers, but as communication streams become more efficient via the web, the usps needs to continue to adapt.
  
  hasani, to your point, the people engagement piece is the biggest factor here. not only in your neighborhood (lee-miles), but more so in rural communities throughout the country. it may be common that the postal service is the only form of communication rural families use. with that in mind, i think the usps could become a consultant for these folks to help them adapt for a web based communication network. usps branches could team up with local libraries for a few months to offer awareness classes on why homes need to invest in a computer.
  
  snail mail will always be around. i sincerely support usps, but facing an $11B deficit is hard for me to understand. top officials of the usps had to see the writing on the wall years ago. i think that should have been the time for technology improvements and community engagement. we now face a reactive approach to a major problem, as oppose to a proactive approach to a foreseeable problem (the later certainly preffered).
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  Posted Sep 22, 2011
  
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