Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

What's Brewing

Mailbox site isn't in the bag

By SUSAN THURSTON
Published April 15, 2005

We've all had our beefs with the U.S. Postal Service. Where's my check? Why didn't mom's gift arrive in time? And why do the rates keep going up?

Usually, we chalk it up to the realities of doing business with a mega government agency that, despite its flaws, still manages to deliver to every house and business six days a week.

NOT PENN LYMAN. He's on a mission to win a fight with the post office over the way he gets his mail.

It's a battle he'll probably lose, but to him, it's worth the fight.

In October, a motorist smashed Lyman's mailbox along Cleveland Street in Swann Estates. Frustrated, he bought a new box and hung it next to his front door for safekeeping.

Two days later, two postal supervisors showed up. No dice, they said. You can't move your mailbox from the street to your front door. Change it back within 90 days or we'll return your mail to sender. As incentive, they gave him a new box and post.

Lyman said thanks but no thanks. Several people on his street have doorside delivery. He wants the same.

Lyman, 61, kept his doorside box until the deadline expired, then grudgingly put up the curbside box. Since then, he has moved his campaign indoors, where he writes letters to postal officials, lawmakers and the ACLU arguing his case.

"We find it repugnant that an organization with the United States in its logo would discriminate in such manner," wrote Lyman and his wife, Debra, in a letter to U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and U.S. Rep. Jim Davis, D-Tampa.

Really, Lyman is fighting time, not the post office.

YEARS AGO, everyone had doorside delivery and carriers walked their routes. That changed in 1978 when the Postal Service declared that every new development must have curbside delivery or mailboxes at a central location.

"There's been a lot of things that have changed over the years to become more efficient," said Gary Sawtelle, spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service's Suncoast District, which includes Tampa.

Remember when milk men delivered to your door? Or when garbage collectors would go into your garage to get trash cans?

You won't see a doorside box in New Tampa or Westchase. But you will see them in older parts of town, from Hyde Park to Tampa Heights. Overall, of the ZIP codes starting with 336, about 25,300 houses have doorside delivery, compared with 147,700 with curbside.

Many places, including Lyman's street, have a mix. As new people move in, some put mailboxes along the road. Several keep the doorside boxes and slots. (Mayor Pam Iorio, who bought down the street a few years ago, walks to the curb for her mail.)

The post office allows people to change from door to curb delivery, and actually encourages it. However, you can't change from curb to door unless you get a medical waiver, which is rare.

A smashed mailbox isn't enough.

Though sympathetic to people like Lyman, the post office has its reasons for wanting curbside. It costs $309.75 a year per house to deliver at the door compared with $196.62 to deliver at the curb, according to the most recent study in 2003.

Carriers obviously can deliver faster driving than walking, even in places with both curbside and doorside delivery. Changing one house requires the post office to adjust the route to keep in balance with other routes.

Overall, the Postal Service delivers 206-billion pieces of mail a year, or an average of five pieces per address a day to more than 142-million homes, businesses and boxes. Each of the 300,000 carriers delivers about 2,300 pieces of mail a day to about 500 addresses.

That's a lot of mail to haul around in a bag.

The post office has tried campaigns to get people to convert to curbside but isn't aggressive about it, Sawtelle said. Officials know some people don't like curbside and instead enforce rules that once a delivery mode has been established at a house, it sticks.

"We know mail delivery is personal," Sawtelle said. "There is a moment in the day when you open your mailbox and there could be something good in it."

That comes as some consolation to Lyman who acknowledges that he relies on the post office for everything from his electric bill to his blood pressure medicine. Still, he plans to keep fighting for his doorside box.

His next letter about it is in the mail.

THE LAST DROP: Hundreds of volunteers will get down and dirty Saturday morning during the 12th annual Great American Cleanup. Grab some gloves and head to one of several cleanup sites or, simpler yet, just pick up some trash along your street. For a list of locations, go to Keep Hillsborough County Beautiful's Web site at www.khcbonline.org

- Susan Thurston can be reached at 226-3394 or thurston@sptimes.com

[Last modified April 13, 2005, 16:39:09]