The U.S. Postal Service has informed employees of the details of their revised roles as they report to new facilities as soon as next month, when many letter carriers will have to commute significantly farther to make deliveries each day.
The conversions scheduled to take place in February are set to impact 17 post offices and other facilities in Florida, Massachusetts, New York and Texas, which will consolidate into five larger “sorting and delivery centers.” The moves are part of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s plan to remake the Postal Service’s network to reduce wasted movement and improve integration. USPS piloted the initiative at a facility in Athens, Ga., in November, and the initial phase of the project is expected to impact hundreds of post offices.
The changes will mean letter carriers no longer go to their local facility to pick up mail for their route, instead traveling farther distances after starting at a consolidated location. The impacted post offices will still conduct their retail operations, but a lot of the back-end functions will be stripped away and relocated.