NW Philly, LBI, Main Line post offices on shutdown list (Update)
US Postal Service looks at shutting, merging or privatizing post offices in parts of Northwest and West Philly, and on Long Beach Island.
NW Philly, LBI, Main Line post offices on shutdown list (Update)
Joseph N. DiStefano
The US Postal Service is weighing the closing of 3,700 US post offices, including 14 in Philadelphia: 30th St. (at the Amtrak station, in the 19104 Zip code), B. Free Franklin at Franklin Court museum in 19106, Castle Finance in 19148 in South Philly, East Falls 19129, East Germantown 19138, Fairmount Finance 19130, Kingsessing 19143, Manayunk 19127, Overbrook 19151, Roxborough 19128, Schuylkill 19146, Spring Garden 19122, West Market 19139, West Park 19131.
UPDATE: Also targeted for review and possible closing are post offices at St. David's on the Main Line (in the 19087 area), and the two neighbor-villages of Salford 18957 and Woxall 18979, in Montgomery County west of Harleysville. (A previous edition of this item didn't list these suburban locations.)
EARLIER: Also on the list: the wealthy Shore town of Harvey Cedars, and Long Beach, at the Jersey Shore. And Dividing Creek down past Vineland. See the PA list here and the NJ list here or check any state listed here.
The fact many of the offices "are clustered together is a coincidence," USPS spokeswoman Cathy Yarosky told me. There's no plans to merge, for example, the Northwest Philly branches on the list into a single Man-Rox-Falls.
USPS isn't done deciding, but "it is conceivable that... a significant percentage could be closed," Yarosky added. Why these offices? For example, because they "do not have the value of a minimum workload per day for the last 12 months," or they've been previously targeted for closure but haven't yet gotten "to the community meeting stage," or they're in places where postal users "have available alternate access," or, in short, the offices "suffer from insufficient customer demand.
Read the Postal Service Statement here. Excerpt: Postal Service says today it is "right-sizing its expansive retail network by conducting studies of approximately 3,700 retail offices to determine customer needs. As part of this effort, the Postal Service also introduced a retail-replacement option for affected communities around the nation.
“Today, more than 35 percent of the Postal Service’s retail revenue comes from expanded access locations such as grocery stores, drug stores, office supply stores, retail chains, self-service kiosks, ATMs and usps.com, open 24/7,” said Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe in the statement. “Our customers' habits have made it clear that they no longer require a physical post office to conduct most of their postal business.”
"For communities currently without a postal retail office and for communities affected by these retail optimization efforts, the Postal Service introduced the Village Post Office as a potential replacement option. Village Post Offices would be operated by local businesses, such as pharmacies, grocery stores and other appropriate retailers, and would offer popular postal products and services such as stamps and flat-rate packaging." Yakovsky says prices would be the same as at government-run post offices.
Village post offices? Wasn't that the business model that worked so well for over 100 years? And the Long Beach P.O. is practically brand new. It was built BEACH BLOCK and 3 times the size of the one it replaced.— Wilhelm Von Humboldt- That's another one of their problems & I've seen it myself. They close down smaller post offices & open up these new shiny ones.(like you said, 3x the size) Problem is their business isn't expanding - in fact it's shrinking. So building these new post offices was a just an unnecessary waste of resources. Kinda like when the Philly School District tears down old schools for new ones the realizes they're in the red 630 Million. (i.e. Lincoln High) — Kennedy
- I think I mailed a fine in last year...
-not bob levy— remyy - I wish they'd do SOMETHING already. The USPS is hemorrhaging BILLIONS year after year and always comes up with proposals but never follows through with any of them. 1st thing they should do, is do away with Saturday delivery. I mean really … ever open your mailbox on Saturday? It’s all junk & bills anyway. (Think I could go a day w/out them) Then they need to look at further office closures & reducing their workforce. May sound cruel but the USPS has to keep up with the times. It’s not 1954 anymore. There’s this thing called the internet that has made a lot of the post offices functions obsolete. So hopefully they really start to work on these issues, because the US tax payers don’t deserve to continue to foot the bill. (8.5 Billion Shortfall in 2010 alone)— Kennedy
- get congress out of the picture and stop Sat service as of this Sat.
— ald - Totally agree. This Sat delivery issue has been tied-up for a few years now. Congress needs to take themselves out of the equation. All this delay is doing is costing ALL OF US more $$ — Kennedy
- the east falls PO is by far the worst place on earth to visit. I think i would prefer to stop by hell to mail packages before that place. they are the laziest, most racist people i've ever been in contact with. please shut 'er down.— g$ is an idiot
- Not sure about the race angle but I will agree that the service is awful these days. I was in a P.O. this Saturday (in the Far N.E.) and it was a horrible experience. 1 clerk working the window. I was in line for 20-25 minutes. She kept asking about her colleague who evidently was on break. BRUTAL! — Kennedy
- Eliminating Saturday delivery is not the answer. Many folks, especially senior citizens depend on receiving their mail in a timely fashion, and yes, if the 3rd of the month falls on a Saturday, they would need to wait until Monday to receive their SS checks.
Not everyone is delighted with, or can afford to do business over the internet, many folks still prefer to write and mail checks to pay their bills.
The P.O. needs to use common sense when placing a site. In Springfield, they have the original site located next to the trolley stop and another at Springfield Mall. The Springfield Mall site is closing next week and moving to the shopping center across the street which is a disaster because there's already too many eateries and other businesses in there that make parking impossible unless you're one of the lucky ones that's able to go to the P.O. during the day. The one in the mall was at least open in the evening, its unknown if it will still be once it moves. This is unfortuante for those shipping packages around Christmastime, either the P.O. won't be open, or if it is you'll have to slug those packages across the parking lot if you're lucky to be able to find a spot. There are so many other vacant storefronts along Baltimore Pike they could have selected that offered better ingress and egress and plenty of parking. Shame on the USPS for not thinking of their customers first!— JetDrive - When seniors get their SS checks on a Saturday, how do they turn them into cash without bank clearance? I know some banks have limited weekend hours, but the money isn't in their account until Monday. Also, all new SS recipients are required to use direct deposit, and ALL recipients must use direct deposit by 2013. — atd
- Not necessarily true on the SS issue. The checks state deliver by the 3rd of the month, so if the 3rd falls on a non-mail day (holiday or sunday), the checks are delivered the day prior. — solobrutha
They should have closed the Roxborough branch years ago. Those creeps kept deliberately breaking the stamp machines and refused to open the kiosk. Lousy service, surly employees. Close 'em down.— The Monk
Comment removed.- I can't believe they're going to close my local post office, it's unamerican. I need that post office! Oh wait, I haven't actually been inside a post office in 4 years. maybe I don't need it after all.
- Coach once again coming up with the reason why a conservative should never govern. They don't care about anyone else's problems, but need everyone else to blame for theirs.— HandNik
