USPS Plans End To Saturday Mail Service

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The cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service announced Wednesday plans to reduce mail delivery from six days a week to five beginning in August, a move that is expected to save the agency about $2 billion a year. NY1's Erin Clarke filed the following report.

Better drop that bill payment or birthday card in the mail one day early, because the cash-strapped U. S. Postal Service wants to eliminate Saturday delivery of mail, starting in the summer.

"It's going to be detrimental, also, because it's going to take a day longer, and so forth," said David Pacheco, a Pelham Bay resident. "So people have to arrange to send whatever they need to send out earlier."

The struggling agency gets no tax dollars and relies on the sale of postage, products and service. It's losing $25 million per day.

DC Debate Over USPS Plan

There is a debate going on in Washington over whether the postal service can unilaterally eliminate Saturday letter deliveries.

While post offices with Saturday hours will stay open, moving to five-day-a-week mail delivery is expected to save the postal service $2 billion per year. Still, New Yorkers are expressing discontent.

"Didn't they raise the stamp price?" said Paulina Reyes, a Mott Haven resident. "They raised the stamp price, so then you would think that they had the money."

"If you stop six-day delivery, then how can it not affect the community?" said Jonathan Smith, president of the New York Metro Area Postal Union. "They're saying that we can't handle the productivity. Well, if you can't handle the productivity on six days, how are you going to handle it on five days?"

Packages, medicines and priority mail will still be delivered on Saturdays. The agency makes money on them.

Eliminating Saturday service is just one way the Postal Service is trying to save money. In the Bronx, there are plans to sell a building on East 149th Street and Grand Concourse.

The agency said the outside would stay the same because the three-story building is a landmark, but the postal service would consolidate all its operations onto the ground floor, provided the new owner agreed. Otherwise, it would relocate to a similar space nearby.

The postal service said current employees would keep their jobs.

The postal service said that's still some time off, since there's no potential buyer in sight.

The end of Saturday delivery is scheduled for August 5.