If you Have Not Experienced it yet? Expect Slower Mail Delivery

This commentary by Steve Hutkins outlines the plan Louis Dejoy put in place as the US Postmaster General. I am not too sure where the plan is at in actions at this time. If you are experiencing slower mail delivery, then it has been implemented in your area. Citified areas are less likely to experience the impact of it.

“USPS is set to downgrade delivery standards: Which Congressional Districts and States will be hardest hit?” Save the Post Office

Over past weeks, the Postal Service was expected to begin implementing its Regional Transportation Optimization initiative (I am not too sure where the plan is at in actions at this time). The RTO will end afternoon collections at nearly three-fourths of the country’s post offices and add another day to delivery times for outgoing mail and packages.

On January 31, the Postal Regulatory Commission issued a highly critical advisory opinion about the plan and in particular its negative impacts on rural communities. The Commission urged the Postal Service “to reconsider whether the speculative, meager gains from this proposal outweigh the certain downgrade in service for a significant portion of the nation.”

The advisory opinion shows that for Single-Piece First-Class Mail — the type of mail most likely to be used by a household or business — nearly half of ZIP Code pairs (mail sent from one ZIP Code to another) will experience downgraded service.

Nationwide, under the RTO plan, about 24,400 of the country’s 33,700 post office will no longer get an afternoon collection. About three-fourths of the nation’s ZIP Codes and nearly half of the country’s population will be adversely affected.

The advisory opinion is strictly advisory, so the Postal Service can, and probably will, choose to proceed with implementation despite the Commission’s concerns. Only Congress can stop the slowdown now. It may therefore be useful to consider which Congressional districts and which states would be most adversely impacted by the RTO service changes.

Questions about the Universal Service Obligation

Under the RTO plan, mail and packages won’t be collected at the end of the day and transported to processing centers for sortation. Instead, everything will sit overnight in the back of the post office, waiting to be collected the next morning at the same time the mail is dropped at the post office for delivery.

The plan thus adds at least one day to delivery times. As part of the RTO, the Postal Service has therefore also proposed revising service standards to reflect the additional day for outgoing mail at RTO post offices.

Unlike previous downgrades in service standards, the RTO does not apply uniformly across the entire country. It applies only to post offices located more than 50 miles from one of the 59 Regional Processing & Distribution Centers in the new network. Because these RPDCs are typically located in metropolitan areas, most, but not all, of the impacted post offices are in rural areas.

While the effects of RTO on rural America are of paramount concern, the plan affects cities in disparate ways as well. Many state capitals, for example, will see their mail slow down, while mail sent from within 50 miles of their RPDC will see faster service. Wisconsin’s capital in Madison is more than 50 miles from the RPDC in Milwaukee, so mail sent from Madison will move more slowly than mail sent from Milwaukee. Mail sent from Jefferson City, Missouri, will move more slowly than mail from Kansas City and St. Louis. Mail from Bismarck, North Dakota, will move more slowly than mail from Fargo.

At a hearing about the plan on December 4, 2024, PRC Commissioner Robert Taub expressed concern that the Postal Service is proposing to make an “unprecedented” change in the nature of service because the plan “is not affecting all of us in America in the same way. Rural America, those particularly affected outside of this arbitrary 50-mile radius, are going to be getting different service. That to me raises fundamental questions about what is the universal service obligation that Americans have come to expect.”

Taub, now Vice Chairman of the PRC, went on to state that the American public, through its representatives in Congress, needs to have its views heard, “as opposed to leaving this to unilateral decisions of the Postal Service.”

Impacts on rural communities

Perhaps the simplest way to see the urban-rural divide in the RTO proposal is to look at a map provided in the Postal Service in a presentation back in September 2024. The map shows the areas within 50 miles of a RPDC in yellow and the areas outside the 50-mile radius in blue. (More detailed, interactive versions of this map are here.)

This USPS map is very similar to a map of the top fifty metropolitan areas of the country. That’s simply because most RPDCs are in metro areas.

What this means, then, is that large metropolitan areas will not suffer the RTO downgrades and will instead enjoy an upgrade in service standards for some destinations. Everything sent from outside the 50-mile radius around RPDCs will slow down.

Impacts on Congressional Districts

Given the disparate impacts on rural and urban communities, it’s no surprise that Congressional districts that are largely rural will suffer the consequences of lower service standards more than more densely populated districts. Those that are urban may not have any ZIP Codes subject to RTO, while rural districts may see nearly all of their ZIP Codes subject to RTO.

More specifically, 97 districts would see none of their ZIP Codes fall within RTO, while 83 districts would see all of its ZIP Code fall within the RTO. Overall, 142 districts would see at least 90 percent of their ZIPs subject to an RTO downgrade. The remaining districts have some ZIP Codes inside the 50-mile radius of a RPDC and some ZIP codes outside this radius.

Here’s a map showing the Congressional districts and the percentage of ZIP Codes that would be subject to the RTO. Scroll over the map for details.

Impacts of RTO on Congressional Districts

The map is based on the following table, which shows each district (with a link to more info and a map of the district), the total population of the district, the percentage of the population that lives in areas that will be subject to a RTO downgrade, the total number of ZIP Codes in the district, and the percentage of these ZIPs that are subject to the RTO. Note that numbers are estimates due to technical issues involved with combining data on ZIP Codes, Congressional districts, USPS filings with the PRC, and Census populations (e.g., some ZIP Codes fall within two Congressional districts).

RTO Impacts by Congressional District and State

Angry Bear does not have the ability to upload the above chart. If you look at Wyoming, you can see that 100% of its population falls within a Regional Transportation Optimization (RTO) downgrade which means slower mail delivery. If you look at the map above, you can see Wyoming’s zip code(s) are in an RTO.

AB: RTOs were created under Louis DeJoy’s 10-year plan development called “Delivering for America” to stabilize the finances of the Postal Service by slowing first class mail delivery, optimizing transportation networks, cutting post office hours, and raising prices. The fix is delivery based upon resource available to do faster delivery. Those outside of thar resource will have a slower delivery. View the maps.

Table Detail can be viewed at: USPS is set to downgrade delivery standards: Which Congressional Districts and States will be hardest hit?

Impacts on states

Here’s a map showing the percentage of ZIP Codes in each state that will be subject to a service standard downgrade under RTO. Scroll over the map for details.

Four states — Wyoming, Vermont, West Virginia and South Dakota — would see all of their ZIP Codes subject to RTO. In contrast, New Jersey and Massachusetts would see less than 30 percent of their ZIP Codes subject to RTO.

RTO in New York Example

Consider New York State. In the new network being implemented under the Delivering for America plan, New York will be served by four RPDCs: Rochester, Bethpage on Long Island, Jersey City, NJ, and Springfield, MA. Here are two maps of the state, the first showing the regions served by these RPDCs and the second showing the areas that will be subject to RTO (in blue). (Click on the maps for a larger view.)

Below is a map of New York showing the Congressional districts and how they would be impacted by RTO. The areas around Rochester and Bethpage (in yellow) will not be subject to RTO, while much of the rest of the state (in blue) is more than 50 miles from the four RPDCs and hence subject to RTO.

Overall, about one-third of the state’s population and two-thirds of its ZIP codes will fall within the RTO downgrade. Hover over the map for details on “Save The Post Office.“

Last year, the Postal Service implemented a pilot version of the RTO called Local Transportation Optimization in the Mid-Hudson region, south of Albany. It was one of 23 areas where the LTO was piloted. The Mid-Hudson pilot ended afternoon collections at nearly 200 post offices. When the RTO plan is implemented, about 1,280 of New York’s post offices will lose the afternoon collection. The Postal Service, by the way, has yet to inform customers at the LTO pilot post offices that their mail is being held until the next day.

Some additional information by Steve Hutkins of Save the Post Office:

There’s more about the PRC advisory opinion here. My own comments to the PRC for the advisory opinion are here; several members of Congress submitted this letter; and I’d also recommend the brief submitted by postal advocate Douglas Carlson, here. There’s more about the RTO initiative on our RTO dashboard and DFA dashboard.