Stamping Out the Postal Service

Once in awhile we find ourselves in that situation where we need to send somebody a check or a birthday card or something. Wow! Another 44 cents out of the old bean money jar. And yet the post office says its going broke. Why is that?



Let’s look at a little history: In 1775 the Second Continental Congress decided that a Postmaster General should be appointed. Ben Franklin got the job. The task was to establish rates and deliver the mail. Simple enough. If people wanted to communicate farther than they could shout they sent a letter. The only other option was to get on the horse.

One of the main contributions of the post office in the US was transportation. At first they just carried mail around in saddle bags. Often these were attached to horses. Then the stagecoach, steamboat, railroad, automobile, bicycle, and airplane were used. These overlapped with each other and things like balloons and pneumatic tubes. Getting a mail contract financed transportation upgrades for many companies.

The railroads improved the pickup and delivery process because of their speed and reliability. A train could travel in weather that stopped other forms of transportation. They picked up a bag of mail at a little town and dropped off a bag. The new mail was sorted as the train went to the next town. The postage paid for it.

Along the way people figured out ways to scam the mail contracts. In 1914 the Post Office got permission to establish its own fleet of mail vehicles to reduce fraud and abuse by contract carriers. Many of those original jeeps are still dropping off mail at households across the country. Except in rural areas where the letter carrier uses the family Prius.

The Post Office has raised First Class Mail to 44 cents and it will probably go higher. Here’s the problem: First Class is the main source of revenue at the PO. All those catalogs, bills, and magazines just ride along when they deliver your first class mail. Notice anything in the last ten years or so? Along with all that other stuff you rarely get an actual full price letter. You can’t tell how much the other items cost but they aren’t 44 cents.

Sometime after the Nixon administration we got email. Now we can annoy hundreds of friends, relatives, and complete strangers whenever we want without paying any postage at all. Several email services are free. At least you think they’re free. You have to pay for access to the internet. That’s not free. It costs a lot more than stamps.

The Post Office should have seen the trend long ago when Al Gore invented the internet. Look what happened to package forwarding. The Post Office used to insist that all packages be wrapped in paper and tied with string. Remember that? Then suddenly along came some private package companies and they didn’t need the string. Just tape ‘er up and let ‘er go. The PO decided that was OK because they saw their business eroding.

The package companies provided several improvements that the PO later adopted or ignored depending on what short sighted nimrod was in charge. Things were dicey for awhile until the PO found they could save by providing slower service. Oh, and not as reliable. That’s when they changed their name to “Postal Service.”

But they still refused to see how the new process of communication among individuals could possibly be of interest to them. USPS was losing its main source of revenue to email. They were propped up by congress but the law says they have to pay their way.

FedEx and UPS are doing the bulk of package hauling and the internet is doing the bulk of individual letters. The trend now is electronic bill paying. I don’t write checks any more. I get an email that says I owe my bookie some money (dang Colts are costing me a bundle) and I log on to my bank and tell them to pay the slime. The money is transferred electronically.

For those who don’t understand how money can be transferred electronically think of your toaster. When you stick a slice of bread in and punch the lever down the Grand Coulee Dam sends electricity to the toaster. At some point the bread pops up and it turns out to be toast. See the banks do the same thing: your bank stuffs your money into a thing that looks like a toaster and it pops up at the bookie’s bank as toast. Feel free to use this analogy to explain the internet to your friends. Send a thank you email to the Grand Coulee Dam.

The result is the Postal Service is losing money. They can’t continue delivering junk mail to every mailbox in America six days a week. We just load it into our recycle cans. They take it to the paper mill where it’s made into new paper. Then someone prints more junk on it and the postman/woman puts it back in your mailbox. What could be simpler?

That’s what I’m here for: tell you what could be simpler. Glen, the Lake Boren Carp, suggested the PO just hand over the whole thing to the garbage companies. They show up once a week to empty your cans and fill up your mailbox. After all they go around to every home just like the letter carrier. Just not as often.

Another suggestion is to turn it all over to the private package forwarding people. We each choose our preferred company such as; UPS, FedEx, DHL, whatever, and then we choose our frequency. Maybe I want FedEx to bring my mail twice a week. I pay a monthly fee (electronically) and they do all the work. Seems simple enough. The big companies would take over the Post Office sorting and distribution centers. They might contract the Postal Service to do that part. What could possibly go wrong?

Another tactic would be to simply reduce the number of deliveries from six per week to two or three. But that still doesn’t address the real issue. We need to stop the junk mail, recycle, and back to junk mail cycle. We should be able to opt out. Some places are doing that with phone books. You get on the web and choose which ones you want or don’t want. You should also be able to choose only those ads that pertain to places you shop. And you can tell political parties ONE flyer per candidate or issue, not 17. Every day I get something in the mail telling me to vote for someone after I’ve already sent in my ballot. Just stop it.

Next you need to get an iPad or Kindle Fire or one of the lesser brands and get your magazines on it. You don’t really need paper magazines with all those cards falling out. Since your toaster is already connected to Grand Coulee Dam you just plug in your Kindle at night and in the morning you have a new magazine to read. Poof the PO problem is solved.

Once again the Post Office improves transportation: reduce the number of little jeeps delivering mail, reduce the number of big trucks picking up your recycle bin, and save you the trouble of running to the super market to get the latest Enquirer issue.

You’re welcome!

Al

Decisions to be Made Later

The Alaska Way Viaduct is partly coming down. That roadway that’s been in danger of falling into Elliott Bay during an earthquake since sometime last century is finally getting some attention. The mayor of Seattle, Miker the biker, has been advocating we replace the viaduct with… nothing.



That’s right; a 6 lane state highway just goes away. We can handle the traffic on city streets if everyone rides bikes to work. To help get the point across the parking fees have been rising like Godzilla from the bay and fines have gone bonkers as well.


The main theme is to prevent cars from entering the city of Seattle. Get rid of roads and substantially increase parking costs. Don’t replace the SR 520 Bridge either. Now if we can get that sweet $4.00 gas back we’d have the perfect storm to ban cars from Seattle.


Here’s how it’s really going: The south mile of the viaduct is being removed (Christine’s big orange machine) to make way for the tunnel construction. That means they have to close the whole thing until they finish the new on-ramps that will be out of the way of the tunnel construction. WashDOT is doing that to help Seattle voters get a feel for how nice it would be if there was no replacement for the viaduct.


The tunnel project is also a seawall project. Long ago, back when Seattle was wealthy from the Alaska Gold Rush bucks they decided the place was a little too hilly. So they got some steam shovels and big water cannons and leveled it out some. It’s still hilly but not so much. We call it the “Denny Regrade” area but most people (like Mayor Mike) probably don’t remember why we call it that. Denny was one of the Seattle pioneers along with a fellow named Boren, among others.


Anyway, the result of that old leveling project is that most of the soil on the waterfront is not as stable as it should be. They also built a seawall to keep Elliot Bay from reclaiming its old shoreline. That seawall can’t possibly hold the salt water out and the fill dirt in once the tunnel is dug. That’s why the tunnel project includes a seawall.


The tunnel boring machine has finally been extracted from the Bright Water Sewage Treatment tunnel so it’s time to start digging the new road. You’d think somebody would get the idea that we need more than one tunnel boring machine. Do I have to think of everything?


During this nine day closure Seattle traffic is really backing up. I know people who left for work Monday morning and haven’t been seen since. The backups extend to Portland.


There are different issues in Bellevue. Sound Transit has gotten approval to extend light rail over Lake Washington into Bellevue. The plan says they replace the I-90 reversible HOV lanes with light rail. As mitigation they intend to add another lane each way to the general purpose decks so car pools and busses can squeak by. That might actually be an improvement since right now the reverse commute direction gets backed up.


In order to get light rail into downtown they need to build the tracks somewhere. This is the issue. Nobody wants the trains near them. One plan was to use the old BNSF corridor that parallels I-405. But the folks who live in condos along the route are very much opposed to that plan and it adds distance. The other route is to head up Bellevue Way and then 112th to Main Street. That puts it in several dozen back yards. And a bunch of front yards.


Neither of these routes is acceptable. A third alternative was to cross diagonally over the Bellefields Wetland area. That won’t even get off the ground. Don’t mess with the muskrats and their pals.


Then to further confuse the issue somebody suggested that Sound Transit just buy a whole bunch of homes and use that as their route into downtown. The suggestion included elevating the track so that it reaches Main Street at the hilltop and would not require a tunnel. It would just run up 108th to the Transit Center. That opened a whole nother can of worms because everyone had already agreed that a surface route in downtown Bellevue just won’t work. I love these brilliant people!


What the Bellevue City Council wants is time. They can’t agree with each other or with Sound Transit. They hired a consulting firm to study the routes and explain the best choice. That was to be delivered long after Sound Transit decided a route and began design work. Whoa, give us more time to muddy the waters and find even worse proposals.


Then along comes the big shopping center owner who doesn’t want light rail in Bellevue at all. We don’t know why this dude is so set against the prospect of rapid transit but he’s got plenty of doubletalk to go with it.


At one point he filed a suit claiming Sound Transit can’t use the I-90 HOV lanes for light rail since it was built with gas tax money. Gas tax can only be used to build roadways so this hair is being split as well. The courts have made rulings but nobody understands what they said. So it’s still in the courts somewhere but we lost track of it. I think some judge in Moses Lake has it right now and its huntin’ season so no action.


Along comes short sighted Tim who puts out an initiative to fog up the tolling plans WashDOT has worked so hard on. This is about the SR 520 Floating Bridge that’s in serious danger of sinking in an earthquake. They want to help finance a replacement with tolls. It’ll all be automated so drivers won’t have to stop at a toll booth. They started tolling last spring, no last summer, no maybe September, no maybe Christmas. We don’t know.


The point Tim is trying to make is that you can’t have “unelected” officials setting tolls. He wants the legislature to set tolls. Right, they can’t tie their own shoes. And just to get the shopping center guy on board the initiative includes a provision that would deny Sound Transit use of the I-90 Bridge. Are we confused yet? Does this lead anywhere? Well guess what? The Bellevue City Council had a hearing on the tolling initiative and took a vote. The decision was to study it longer because they can’t make a decision. Hire another consultant and make sure the due date is after the election. Oh, and you can’t add tolling to the I-90 Bridge either. Everyone is worried that if we ever get SR 520 tolls going that drivers will use I-90 which is “free.” So we just toll I-90 and that will even out the traffic flow on the only two routes over Lake Washington.


Here’s my solution: elect somebody else. City councils that can’t make decisions are not what we need. I just looked at my ballot for November. Sheesh! Guess who gets my write in vote for king of all Puget Sound transportation? Glen, the Lake Boren Carp!


Al