Yup. I don't think many people realize that USPS provides service to addresses that every single private carrier in the country will refuse to deliver to. They even service addresses that are only accessible by boat! There's still a mule route!
I don't see the USPS budget deficit as a loss, but rather the true cost of giving us access. And far less than some other more wasteful priorities like tax cuts.
Yes! We’re paying for a service with our taxes. The whole idea that it’s a business is flawed. It’s all antithetical to the concept of society and what we decided long ago the purpose of government was.
There are communities in the Rogue River valley here in Oregon that got mail by mule trains into at least the 1940s, and by boat till…now. The tourist jet boats that go up and down the Rogue River still deliver the mail. https://www.roguejets.com/historic-mail-route
When I lived in urban-ish Alaska frequently it would happen that if the private carriers didn't outright refuse to ship they would just hand the package off to the USPS who would actually deliver it. People would tell me it was too $$$ to ship to ak when USPS would get it there in three days for $5.
Yeah, that's one of the main ways USPS effectively subsidizes private carriers. They take the expensive stuff but will generally still charge it on standard rates. If that goes away, those routes become permanently more expensive or are just eliminated.
It was decades ago, but I had a customer for the Photo lab who was in Alaska. The post office delivered his mail by dropping it from a plane to his property. That's how his finished 20"x 24" prints were delivered to him. No other courier would accept that job.
Yup, in the Grand Canyon! It's cheaper and safer than other methods of getting mail to the bottom. Once they unload the mules are set loose and make the way back up on their own. https://facts.usps.com/8-mile-mule-train-delivery/
I'm a bit confused about the "set loose" part. I hiked the Canyon (many years ago), never saw a mule that was not part of a train led by a wrangler; and has to be a way to get outgoing mail to the rim (which might be higher volume; I can't be the only one mailing to myself; postmarked from bottom.
There's also the postmaster on Molokai in Hawaiʻi that hikes a mountain trail to get the mail to her station. I've been trying to find the article I read about it in a few years ago but I haven't been able to :(
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