Wall Reacts To Phasing Out of Saturday Mail

Wall residents' opinons were mixed Tuesday in reaction to the U.S. Postal Service's announcement that it will end Saturday mail delivery this year.

Calling the six-days-per-week mail delivery business model “no longer sustainable,” the U.S. Postal Service announced Wednesday it will eliminate Saturday delivery of mail by Aug. 1.

The move will not affect Wall resident Karen Garofalo.

"To me it doesn't matter at all,'' Garofalo said. "I do almost everything online and most of the time the regular mail is stuff that I could wait until Monday for."

The plan to change delivery from six days a week to five would only affect first-class mail. Packages, mail-order medicines, priority and express mail would still be delivered on Saturdays, and local post offices will remain open for business Saturdays.

The postal service says continued economic struggles and the increasing use of the Internet for communications and bill paying by consumers are making Saturday delivery fiscally impossible, according to a U.S. Postal Service release.

The U.S. Postal Service is also the only federal agency required to pre-fund health benefits for retirees, and those costs are escalating quickly.

“Our current business model of delivering mail six days a week is no longer sustainable. We must change in order to remain an integral part of the American community for decades to come,” the release says.

Saturday is the lightest mail delivery day and many businesses are closed, the release says. But many residents receive print magazines and ads on Saturdays. That mail will be may be shifted to another day.

A Rasmussen poll on mail delivery in 2012 showed “Three-out-of-four Americans (75%) would prefer the U.S. Postal Service cut mail delivery to five days a week rather than receive government subsidies to cover ongoing losses.”

A USA Today/Gallup poll in 2010 found the majority of U.S. residents surveyed were ok with eliminating Saturday delivery. The March 2010 telephone survey of 999 adults revealed people age 55 and older were more likely than younger people to have used the mail to pay a bill or send a letter in the past two weeks.

But don't count Wall High School recent graduate James Gray among that crowd.

"Now that I am away at college, I enjoy staying in touch with my friends and family through the mail,'' Gray said. "Sure, I could always text message or email them, but I find that a handwritten letter delivered in the mail has more of a personal touch."