As the article notes, two-thirds of Canadians already do not have home mail delivery. Many urban residents, like myself, who live in newer areas with community mail boxes (a mail box that is maybe 100 metres from your home with everyone's mail) or in any type of apartment or condo building do not have mail delivered to our doorsteps.
It's secure (the boxes are locked unlike a doorstep mailbox), convenient (parcels can be locked in a special parcel dropbox, the key for which is deposited in your own mailbox, instead of having to be retrieved at the post office) and cheaper for the postal system.
Only people who live in older, more affluent areas built before community mailboxes receive home mail delivery. It's effectively a subsidy from us to them. Good riddance.
> Only people who live in older, more affluent areas built before community mailboxes receive home mail delivery. It's effectively a subsidy from us to them. Good riddance.
My parents' old house in a suburb of Vancouver is not in an affluent area and received such door to door service. Their new neighbourhood (which is rather upper middle income) and the apartment block that I live in doesn't however have this and has the "new-fangled" community mailboxes.
I personally am not a fan of this but the amount of mail I have received has diminished to just bills.
Agreed. I grew up in Saskatchewan, and a lot of people live in houses even if they rent, all of whom have home delivery. It's the norm in any area where houses were also the norm, but where acre lots weren't.
To provide a counter-argument: those "older" areas are also denser, and not necessarily affluent.
Come to Hamilton. I'll show you neighborhoods full of worn-down century homes that are under 6 figures to buy. And they don't have driveways. The next mailbox is only 20 feet away, and there's barely even a front lawn.
Compared to the gargantuan two-car-garage megalots of modern suburban sprawl, that's a huge difference. The amount of time a mail-carrier spends walking from one home to the next is important since that activity consumes most of the delivery time.
So the fact is, we used to build cities that made sense to service with mail-carriers. Then we took the brakes off of sprawl development and now it's no longer economical to do this.
I want to see a cost breakdown - what communities cost the most per-house to service with mail-carriers, and what communities cost the least. You want a fiscally sound decision? Fine, base it on cost.
Yes, I'd love to know the cost of delivery in my neighborhood. I live in the Plateau Mont-Royal in Montreal.
There are about 200 people on my block, based on what I could gauge from my municipal election zone. I see the postal workers quickly moving from home to home on foot.
I also fear the community mailboxes will be significantly uglier in areas such as mine, which have a combination of lovely architecture and small streets.
why aren't mail carriers in suburban areas given bikes or motorbikes to speed up their travel?
Auspost has a full spectrum of delivery vehicles vans and cars for remote area\parcels, postie bikes (honda ct110 (though apparently they are replacing these)) for suburban areas, bicycles for denser and trolleys and walking for dense areas
>> Only people who live in older, more affluent areas built before community mailboxes receive home mail delivery.
I lived in the 'hood' - Malvern - in a house that was built in 2001 and I got door-to-door delivery even though houses built at the same time in Markham (just north of Toronto) were on community mailboxes.
Looking at the (American) houses of me and my siblings, there is an inverse relationship between price and convenience of home delivery. One of us lives in a 100K house and gets mail put right to their front door. Another lives in a 800K house and has to drive to their mailbox.
How much of a say does the local Post Office have in how much service it will provide new developments?
I bought and older house, and the USPS puts my mail right through a slot in the door. It's great - super convenient and I don't have to worry about stopping delivery when I'm out of town.
Personally, I'd rather see delivery cut on Saturday than have a community mailbox.
> or in any type of apartment or condo building do not have mail delivered to our doorsteps
wait... in that case, i don't think i've ever had urban home mail delivery. who gets door delivered door to door in a city? large brownstone-type SFRs?
Not sure that's true, I think it has to more do with whether you live inside a major city.
My last house in Toronto was built in late 2001, and even though it was in the less dense northeast outskirts of the city, I had delivery to the door. At that same time, all suburban neighborhoods a few intersections north of me were getting community mailboxes for quite some time.
I live in Toronto, get door-to-door delivery, and am most definitely not in an affluent area, so I wouldn't even say that you assumptions hold true to Toronto.
Thats interesting, I'm from Yellowknife, Northwest Territories and I think everyone is on these superboxes and have been for a very long time. I didn't even realize delivery to the house was a thing until I moved south.
Sir or madam, I'm impressed. I came upon reading about Whitehorse a few days ago when I contemplated a drive to Alaska from Illinois. Whitehorse is definitely off the beaten path
I actually drove up to Alaska as a tourist too and stumbled upon Whitehorse. I liked it so much I decided to come back and live here.
Unfortunately, it's very much not off the beaten path, it's quite literally on the Alaska Highway, and thus gets an enormous amount of through traffic in the summer.
I live in Burnaby, where we have a community mailbox. It's never been robbed, as far as I know. It's encased inside a secondary metal container so we need two keys to get to our mail. Meanwhile, home mailboxes (near the front door) are almost never locked.
If you want to do identity theft, garbage cans are where to look. They're almost never locked.
The metal cage is there because probably the boxes were robbed constantly ;) The pics I've seen of these new boxes don't have a cage but I imagine will when tons of theft happens.
I don't know how widespread it is in the US, but locally all the new developments have those community mailboxes, typically near the main entrance or perhaps several spaced around the neighborhood. I had assumed they are now mandatory as even in wealthy neighborhoods they are used.
Does each person have their own mailbox, just all together (which is what most US apartment buildings have) or is it just a big open box with everyone's mail?
Of note for non-Canadians - those big compartments at the bottom are "shared".
If you get a package that can fit in one that doesn't require a signature, the mail carrier will drop the package in there and put its key in your mail compartment. After you pick up your package, you drop the key off in the outbound mail slot at the top of the box. It's very convenient.
Not just a Canadian thing. I grew up with one of these in a typical sprawling Texas suburban development built in the 1980s. Now my parents live in much older suburb and have home delivery.
We don't know the economics of super boxes versus home delivery, and it would be perilously naive to assume that a move to it demonstrates that it is fiscally prudent. Money goes from one person's pocket to another person's pocket.
Superboxes are significant structures that have to be built and maintained to withstand literally unending vandalism and attempts at theft. They are urban blight, and most quickly become an eyesore that are, by federally forced mandate, pushed onto a community and then maintained at Canada Post's leisure and low level of standards. If any other business wanted to build such ominous structures throughout a neighborhood the barriers and costs would be enormous, and you talk about home delivery being subsidized? [In that self-destructive, race-to-the-bottom, worst-outcome-for-all way that is so disheartening].
Give me a break.
Where a mail carrier once walked briskly through a neighborhood (doubling as a set of eyes and ears in the community, for what that's worth), now they park their truck and sit at the superbox for half an hour while they sort mail into boxes.
I cannot, for the life of me, comprehend how it has made anything more efficient. And of course the grossly inefficient Canada Post of today, with sky-high postal rates and terrible service standards, already is horribly inefficient, so shouldn't the superbox thing have been proven by now?
And it's curious that you note their security given that most have keys that endure for years (from owner to owner to owner), and they are -- right now -- very common target for thieves: Why bother suspiciously going door to door (where the residents would be more likely to quickly retrieve their mail anyways, instead of some common box down the street) when you can pry open a superbox and steal the mail of dozens of people at once.
Canada Post has always been a derelict, massively dysfunctional corporation. Their parcel delivery service is only profitable because they don't deliver parcels: They give you a delivery notice and force you to drive to a depot n miles away in the most grotesquely inefficient delivery scheme devised by man.
The cost of community mail delivery is not unknown. CMBs have existed for decades and the article states that the cost of home delivery is 130% more. So I would submit that we do actually know the economics of it. The cost differential is about $762 million/year ($269-$117 * 5MM mailboxes).
I actually worked part-time as a mail carrier doing home delivery once. It's not easy work, especially in the winter. A lot of people don't maintain their driveways and walkways in the winter and it can be hazardous especially when you're carrying 15 kg or more of mail.
CMBs aren't high-security. But they're surely more secure than unlocked home mailboxes, especially in sleepy suburban neighbourhoods where no one is home for most of the day.
I don't disagree that Canada Post could likely save money in other ways. But this seems to be a rational place to start.
The cost of community mail delivery is not unknown.
Imagine that UPS figured that delivering packages to your door is a real sucker's game, and they were in a monopoly industry where they could unilaterally make moves that competitors couldn't competitively undermine.
So they want to build big, onerous, eyesore structures everywhere throughout a neighborhood.
How much do you think it would cost them to do that? What do you think they will pay to rent the spaces, for instance?
Canada Post pays nothing. The federal government just forced it on municipalities. To make this even more built on imaginary economics, Canada Post forces developers to pay for Canada Post to install the superboxes ($200 per address).
One of those beautiful forms of downloading that of course end-users pay for, but somehow it saves the end user money.
In any case, Canada Post does not publish numbers for CMBs. They publish numbers for group mailboxes (how credible and all inclusive they are we certainly don't know), which includes a massive array of group deliveries, of which superboxes are a subset.
I actually worked part-time as a mail carrier doing home delivery once. It's not easy work, especially in the winter.
I'm not saying it is. But what is happening here is a battle between the union and Canada Post, and both are a part of the problem. One of the reasons home delivery has so many imaginary expenses is that it is a secret known country wide that doing home delivery is a dream job because you are paid for the route, but most carriers can complete the route in a small fraction of a work day, though it is assessed, over long battled union rules, as a full work day.
It's a battle of imaginary work and imaginary expenses, and in the end everyone loses.
The Deutsche Post DHL Packstations are tied into SMS notifications, and are an optional location you can have letters or parcels delivered to after you've registered for the service. They are located at places like supermarkets. I don't know for certain, but as a private company, I'm sure that DHL is covering the costs of the packstations and making it work from a business perspective.
Other package delivery services like Hermes take different approaches, using convenience stores, bookshops, and other small businesses in the area as package drop-off/pickup centres.
I always find it interesting how weirdly old-fashioned the discussion around mail service monopoly is in the US and Canada while 'socialist' Europe privatized the national postal systems years ago, and Deutsche Post fully lost their monopoly on letter delivery in 2008.
Yea but Germany isn't Silicon Valley. So no one cares. Amazon Lockers on the other hand are hyper innovative, because well... er... it's been done stateside. So it must be good. (Even though having lock boxes for each sender is completely inefficient. Do you really want to drive to your Amazon Locker, then your eBay Locker, then your Google Locker... you get the idea?)
As I understood the product, your "amazon locker" was your local 7-11. I imagine there's not a major difference in efficiency between having your "amazon locker" at 7-11 along with your conceptually-different "ebay locker", vs having your unified "postal services locker" at 7-11.
In the UK it's both [1]. There's big yellow metal boxes [2] and if there isn't one in the area they deliver to the "7-11" who is probably providing Collect+ [3] type service.
7-11 has been acting as a logistics and pick up service for ecommerce deliveries in Japan since the 1990s iirc. But 7-11 is way more ubiquitous in Japan.
You raise a good point that Canada Post doesn't pay a true market cost for the real estate its CMBs sit on. But this is the nature of a quasi-public monopoly. But that's the price we pay for you to be able to send a letter from anywhere, to anywhere.
You raise another good point that the cost of home delivery is inflated by the pay-by-distance union rules. But this issue is close to intractable. Given the political reality of this situation, do you think postal workers will give up these rules without a long, disruptive strike? Do you think the government wants to get within 10 miles of another postal strike?
That's just a matter of resolution. Canada Post never did deliver to say, the inbox on your desk, you always had to go to the mailbox to pick up your mail.
What the GP means is that Canada Post serves all areas of the country. If you try to send a package to a rural area via UPS, they'll charge you courier rates and then just mail it for you.
One of the other big factors that hasn't been touched upon here is the cost of boxes vs the true cost of carriers. As we know, one of the largest cost's for these employees is the benefits and pension. So without numbers, just guessing, I would say that it would take a lot of boxes to cover the cost of salaries, benefits and pension for 8000 federal staff.
The article gives the average costs: The average cost of door-to-door delivery is $269 per address per year. The average cost of group mailboxes is $117 per address per year.
It's easy to understand why. It takes less time and effort to deliver to a group mailbox. (The mail has to be sorted regardless of which delivery method is used.)
It's not Canada Post's mandate to act as federally-paid community watchmen in the middle of the day.
If you think Canada Post is dysfunctional, just read some reports about the US Postal Service. In Canada, Canada Post outlets are often found within other businesses (e.g. pharmacies), to share infrastructure costs. That's rare in the US, where postal outlets are usually stand-alone.
Personally, I've never viewed the Canada Post superboxes as "eyesores" or "ominous". They blend into the typical Canadian streetscape and are no more remarkable than street lamps, signs, artificial concrete sidewalks or paved roads.
As far as security is concerned, as someone who lives in a household where no one is around the take the mail in during the day, I'd much rather have something confidential delivered to my locked superbox down the street than have it delivered to an unlocked mailbox near my front door that anyone can access freely.
Wow, I've also never seen that many together. Its somehow not surprising that Canada Post couldn't get it together with the city to intersperse those with recycling boxes. Disgusting.
Oh, that would be much better. I just grabbed one of the first images that came up in a search. Could be the media purposefully choose ugly options to sensationalize the story.
I don't think that's a proper use of NIMBY. NIMBY refers to something like a waste treatment plant. Society needs it somewhere, and everyone would prefer it to be in someone else's backyard.
This mailbox proposal would put mailboxes in everyone's backyard.
>Why bother suspiciously going door to door (where the residents would be more likely to quickly retrieve their mail anyways, instead of some common box down the street) when you can pry open a superbox and steal the mail of dozens of people at once.
Suspiciously door-to-door? Slap a newspaper bag over your shoulder like you're delivering fliers and go collect everyone's mail.
Quickly retrieve their mail? Most people are at work for hours before and after the mail is delivered.
I've lived in communities with both services. I prefer home delivery, because it's more convenient to me. But if you think it's easier to break into the super-boxes than it is to steal someone's home delivered mail, you're out of your mind. Luckily, community morals make either mostly a non-issue.
It is harder, from a criminal perspective you are taking too much risk whereas you can pop a jackpot with a running getaway vehicle beside you. That's why there is rampant CMB theft and not so much home theft. You could also jack a postie for their keys and clear out every box in the neighborhood quickly eapecially on welfare cheque day something they already do a lot of in Burnaby/Surrey from what I've heard from CPC hq
Rampant? 4800 issues reported in BC over a 5 year period[1], in a province with over 20,000 community mailboxes. Issues include non-theft things like graffiti and other vandalism. Haven't found more detailed info, would appreciate a link if you have one.
The article says there are currently 20,000 mailboxes. It doesn't mention how many there were in 2008 - it sounds like community mailboxes are increasing rapidly.
The level of audacity it takes to assault and rob a government employee, versus casually walking into someone's driveway and grabbing their mail are not even close.
I have people delivering fliers to my mailbox multiple times a week. It would take no effort for them to grab my mail and stick it in their sack.
But again, I don't think "the ease at which your mail can be stolen" should even be part of this argument, as it's apparently significantly low in most cases.
All your arguments against "super boxes" also work against post boxes where you drop off your mail - which work fine (at least, it does here in the UK).
Admittedly one-to-many box is a more complicated device than a many-to-one, but the principal is still the same - it is perfectly possible to maintain such infrastructure, anyway.
It's secure (the boxes are locked unlike a doorstep mailbox), convenient (parcels can be locked in a special parcel dropbox, the key for which is deposited in your own mailbox, instead of having to be retrieved at the post office) and cheaper for the postal system.
Only people who live in older, more affluent areas built before community mailboxes receive home mail delivery. It's effectively a subsidy from us to them. Good riddance.