Postal Service thinking out of boxes
The U.S. Postal Service has been forced to change how it serves customers because Americans are relying on the Internet to stay in touch and pay their bills.
From 2003 to 2005, the volume of first-class mail handled by the postal service decreased about 5 1 / 2 percent. First-class mail includes most cards, postcards, letters and large envelopes.
Also declining has been the number of blue collection mailboxes on street corners and in shopping center parking lots.
Oklahoma has about 3,000 blue boxes, said Larry Flener, U.S. Postal Service consumer affairs manager in Oklahoma City. Thirty percent of those boxes are in Oklahoma City and Tulsa.
Nationwide, the postal service has reduced 42,000 blue boxes to scrap metal since 1999. About 295,000 boxes remained standing at the end of 2005.
Postal officials use density studies to determine where blue boxes should be placed, Flener said. Boxes tend to be well-used near assisted living centers and other areas where residents have limited mobility.
Density studies are done routinely to help determine the effectiveness of blue boxes, Flener said.
“We are aware that there are some locations where you can’t rely totally on a density study. The mailbox is a significant convenience for areas where maybe an assisted living center or locations where the nearby residents don’t have the means of transporting the mail to a distant location,” Flener said.
In some cases, blue boxes have been returned to their original locations after citizen complaints , Flener said.
Cassie Sturgeon of Oklahoma City drops all of her outgoing mail in the blue box near her workplace.
“I do it for convenience. And because I don’t want people taking mail out of my (curbside) box,” Sturgeon said.
Some boxes are relocated to save money and increase efficiency, Flener said.
“When you factor in the cost of fuel and the cost of an employee to go by, stop the vehicle, open the collection box to find no mail, there’s a cost associated with that,” Flener said.
The 2001 terrorist attacks accelerated removals.
“When anthrax was introduced into the mail stream, the postal service examined every possibility that would weaken our security,” Flener said. “Collection receptacles, in particular, at that time, were located in the high rise buildings, usually in a lobby area in the inner city. We examined those and removed those in many instances so that the security measures of that facility would not be put at risk.”
Flener insists the blue mailbox won’t become artifacts, although two were put on display at the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum last year.
“It is the standard of mail delivery that we needed to keep in the museum for future generations to remember,” said Nancy Pope, museum curator and historian.
