USPS service lags in Greenville ahead of delivery system changes

GREENVILLE, N.C. (WITN) - The United States Postal Service is making changes to its long-distance delivery services effective tomorrow. The agency claims the changes will increase consistency, reliability, and efficiency.

But Greenville resident Grant Anderson, who went a full week without USPS delivery service, wonders if that is possible.

“It’s been periodic. We’ve been missing a day of mail here and there or it will come really late.”

This week he had to wait a lot longer than just a few hours.

“By Monday, we still didn’t get any mail and I knew we were expecting a couple of checks and some fairly important correspondence,” he said.

Anderson reached out to Greenville City Hall, which instructed him to visit his local post office for further assistance.

“When I finally got to speak to someone, they said, ‘We just don’t have enough carriers. Stuff is in the back, but we can’t get to it.’ And I said, ‘Do you have any idea when mail delivery will resume?’ And he just said, ‘You’re just going to have to wait.’”

He waited until Wednesday night when a bulk of mail delivery was made. Amongst the delivery were newspapers days past their publish date.

“It is concerning to not have that reliability. What’s it going to be once we hit this official slow down which starts tomorrow?” Anderson wonders.

Rep. Greg Murphy (R-NC) shares in the public’s frustration.

“Consequences occur when certain decisions are made, and the American people are suffering because of those,” Murphy said. “It’s an unfortunate circumstance but it’s a cascade of effects that have caused to get us to the point right now.”

The USPS will be transitioning into a new long-distance delivery system beginning Oct. 1, 2021.
First-class mail and periodicals traveling long distances used to see a delivery guarantee of 1 to 3 days. Now they could take up to 5 days.

These delays are a result of transitioning long-distance deliveries via air transportation to truck transportation.

The postal service says this switch will eliminate the less reliable conditions that come with air transportation, like weather delays, flight traffic, availability constraints, competition for space, and the added hand-offs involved.

Also to see an increase will be commercial and retail package delivery rates for the holiday seasons.
Beginning Oct. 3, 2021, and ending Dec. 26, 2021, rates will increase.
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The USPS says this is all part of a 10-year-plan it has coined “Delivering for America” that aims to improve service reliability, consistency, and postal network efficiency.