The Issue: The Postal Service’s recent decision to curtail Saturday mail delivery in an effort to trim losses.
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The Postal Service has little choice but to undertake significant action to conserve resources, given its multi-billion-dollar shortfall (“Saturday Mail, 1863-2013,” Editorial, Feb. 9).
Mail service is increasingly irrelevant in a society that is more paperless and in which most bills may be paid online.
The USPS has encountered hardship, in part by being required to pre-fund its health-care obligations. Not all of its challenges are external, like society’s using modern technology.
It also reflects the often poor level of customer service.
The USPS will need to adapt to the times if it is to survive. That is something it has demonstrated little ability or desire to do to this point.Oren Spiegler
Upper Saint Clair, Pa.
Although I like all the people who work for the Postal Service, I am afraid that the USPS has rendered itself obsolete and very user-unfriendly.
It has cut Saturday delivery, and we now have to file change-of-address forms online and pay a dollar for that privilege?
Would it not make more sense to close on Wednesdays, so that most working people would have access to buy stamps or use other services?John Ost
Manhattan
Why not consider untapped revenue sources to reduce operating deficits and perhaps even turn a small profit?
The USPS could sell advertising space on the sides of mailboxes, post offices and vehicles.
Why not join banks and fast-food restaurants that sublet space at big-box stores and open smaller post offices?
Congressmen and other elected officials should pay the full costs of their annoying, bulk-rate mailings to constituents. It is nothing more than free re-election campaign brochures subsidized by taxpayers.
Charge the full price for all junk mail. Future increases in the price of stamps should be directly tied to inflation.
Why not apply free-enterprise solutions to provide a more cost-effective product and reduce deficits, which could prevent more service cuts and branches from closing?Larry Penner
Great Neck