when we lived in Michigan. We don't get here in Chattanooga.

under the circumstances with how the was mail is now used..

delivery is available. The office building where my wife and I had a suite in California had such a box, but it had only one parcel box to serve the entire building, so receiving packages usually meant a trip to the post office. In addition, delivery personnel did not come to the office with Express Mail deliveries, and that mail was not available until after 4 PM at the post office.

I addressed this with the manager of the branch post office, especially regarding the Express Mail. It turned out that the delivery person was supposed to come to the individual office with such mail. Ours never did that, but just put a slip in the box at the cluster. I had to document this to get some action, so I did. The delivery person got disciplined and the Express Mail got delivered thereafter.

In residential areas, cluster mailboxes are less popular, and for some of the same reasons. However, they do provide an opportunity for neighbors to meet each other when picking up their mail. To that extent, it is a good thing.

business with much poorer service and much higher over head. What about packages? With my large mailbox most packages fit.

Could be quite revealing.....

What the repukes have done to our postal service is reprehensible.

That didn't happen until the mid-1800s, and only in the larger cities.

Rural Free Delivery (RFD) didn't begin until 1896.

twenty-six years or more. At least the first time I moved into a place with a cluster mailbox was in 1986. It's not that terrible. Really. Nor is it anything new.

I've lived with both door to door and cluster mail boxes, and the amount of mis-delivered mail seems the same with each kind. A lot depends on the quality of the local mail person.

not that the repukes care.

disabilities and older people. What if they do not drive? If you live out in the country that is going to make it really hard on some folks. There are not always people who will bring you your mail.

we'll have more and more people who are less able to make a trek for the mail.

I live in a mobile home park and all the mailboxes are at the front of the park.

Obviously, packages would be different. But, the daily delivery of mail is not something I really need, not that others might not.

I'm not interested in harming the Post Office, their services are great -- I have shipped stuff worldwide that Fedex and UPS can't compete with. Do most of my shipping with PO stateside, unless I need someone to do the boxing -- then I use UPS Store.

Letters for less than 50 cents that arrive in a day or two are a bargain, even at twice the price.

Love my postman/lady too.

But, this is the 21st century.

that have made bills and most personal written messages via the post office unnecessary

in 1950, that was the only way

it makes sense to reflect these changes

although i have a tech background, i am what they call a 'tech laggard', i dont feel i have to jump on every bandwagon or have the latest and greatest of everything

yet, at least every decade or so, you have to stop and reassess, does 'x' still make sense?

if we're really serious about being 'green', we need to look at the whole issue of printed and delivered communication. the environmental impact of all this electronic stuff is going to happen, whether we fully use it or not. might as well spare the trees, and all the toluene from printing from going into the landfills, as well as the cardon footprint of delivering all that stuff

Especially in the northern states, where the snow and ice could make it really tough for us old folks to get our mail for days or weeks. And the elderly and disabled often depend on the USPS for delivery of needed medications.

I'm sure the GOPers wouldn't want Granny to fall on the ice and break a hip while trekking to the mailbox to get her heart pills.

post office. The town was so small that they didn't even have P.O. Boxes. You just put their name, the town and ZIP code on. The streets didn't have names until 15 years ago.

from PO box to home delivery. Besides convenience, we were getting too much flack from the package delivery companies because we didn't have a "valid address" and from various government and bank entities who don't want people to have a PO box address because to confuses the snoopers.

There has never been any door-to-door mail deliveries here.

It might be tough in dangerous neighborhoods though, especially for those who get a check on a certain day of the month. And all those checks would be in one easy location.

looks like Issa wants to kill the post office revenue stream.

Amazon uses UPS in my area. Which means I avoid Amazon, because the post comes around noon, FedEx between 10 and 1, but UPS's best day for us ever was 6:31 pm. More often 7-8. I hate that their workers have such a very long day. It seems wrong. (Also, hugely inconvenient for me.)

us hostage to its whims, without viable legal options for redress.

The Postal Service is an independent agency of our government.

If the USPS goes out of biz, we will be at the mercy of the multinational corporate monopolies that will take over our mail service.

Please, stop using Fedex, UPS, etc, and support YOUR post office.

Somebody, usually the property owner/renter the boxes are sitting in front of, has to clear the street of snow, so the mail delivery vehicle can just drive up to the boxes without difficulty. The city won't do it. In fact one place I lived, the city plows would bury the 3 and half foot high mail boxes under the windrow. I had to make time to dig out the boxes our by hand.
So no, boxes by the street in residential areas are not a good idea.
I did not work for the city and I did not work for the USPS and I was paying for a service I had to perform myself.

What are those people going to do for work if USPS goes away?

What did horse-and-buggy carriage makers do when the automobile came along and put them out of work?

We shouldn't keep an institution around just because it provides employment. We should keep it if it is a needed and well-used service (which I think the USPS still is).

So, now that it's broken, they plan to make more money from the poorest, make them walk farther, and pass the rest of our parcels off to a more expensive provider....and everyone seems fine with that.

Stupid. It's bloody stupid.

I would rather cut down the number of delivery days than move to a central location.
Or we can just fund the postal service better. All that money we give overseas could go to funding the freaking postal service.

I moved and forgot to forward the mail--the mail carriers knows me and brought it to my new house,lol

and will no doubt become the norm in the future.