North Dakota Protests Dramatic Changes To US Postal Service.

The US Post Office has big news for rural America...there's about to be a drastic change in your Postal Service times.

Very drastic.

This month, the Postal Service implemented cost-cutting moves, including a longer delivery window for some first-class mail, stretching to up to five days. Rural areas, senior citizens and low-income customers are expected to be hardest hit.

It's not surprising as this is a very large country.  If you drop a letter in a North Dakota rural mailbox should you expect it to get to Silver City, New Mexico in 3 days? Man, that seems ambitious.  Well, it seems the Post Office has been writing that check they haven't been able to cash for 8 YEARS.

Very non-transparent

Current standards require 3-day delivery for any destination within the contiguous U.S. with a drive greater than 6 hours — whether it’s 300 miles or 3,000 miles. Attempting to meet these standards led to an over-reliance on air transportation, which is less reliable and more costly than surface transportation. The result has been unreliable service delivery times, as the Postal Service has not consistently met its published service standards over the last 8 years.

I love my mailman Brent.  He's so darn reliable and always has a biscuit for my mailperson-resistant Daisy dog. He likes her, but she's just leery of mailpeople. So don't even think I'm taking this up with the boots on the ground, so is it is a problem with a lack of people in the air?

Seems The US Postal Service owns no airplanes?

23 States have taken up a multi-state formal complaint against the proposed changes in the US Postal Service, you can see that here.  While North Dakota is not included in the case, we sympathize.

So you would think the Postal Service would just fire up more planes to cover those long distances...but the official USPS new mission statement tells a different story...

MYTH: It is faster and more reliable to move mail by air than by surface transportation. The Postal Service’s insistence on shifting from air to surface transportation will be detrimental to customers.

FACT: We do not own planes and lack control over factors affecting air transportation (e.g. availability of planes, cargo space, weather), but we do have a surface transportation network with a history of higher reliability, excess capacity, and better service performance.

Minnesota hates it.  North Dakota hates it. Nebraska hates it.

Our Postal Service wants us all to chill...

FACT: These changes will improve service reliability, increase efficiency, and reduce costs while adhering to our universal service mission and moving us closer to our goals of financial sustainability and service excellence

Seriously, I've ALWAYS been amazed at how long we've been able to send standard letters cross-country for the price of a stamp.  Even if it takes five days, ain't that still impressive? Now what rural North Dakota?