The announcement Thursday that the U.S. Postal Service will move the sorting and distribution operations currently housed at the Shallowford Road Post Office here to Atlanta and Nashville is hardly a surprise. The Postal Service’s problems — plummeting volume, high costs and regulations that make quick or substantial change difficult in most circumstances — are public record. So are the various plans, including the closure of facilities, put forward to balance the books. Still, Thursday’s announcement is a substantial blow.
It is a shock for several reasons. Foremost, the closure will directly affect the lives of the more than 100 workers currently employed at the sorting and distribution facility who are likely to be out of work. That blow will be personal, but it also has economic consequences. The loss of jobs and attendant decline in income once spent on services and products will ripple through the community as those without work spend less on goods and services.
There are broader implications, as well. The timely delivery of mail that most people served by the Shallowford Road facility have come to expect will change dramatically. Delivery times here likely will slow considerably. For years, mail generated here has been sorted and distributed at the Shallowford center. That almost guaranteed next day delivery to most local addresses. That likely will become a custom of the past.
Currently, a first-class letter dropped in a box in, say, East Brainerd and addressed to someone or a business in Hixson is processed here and then delivered the next day. When the Shallowford facility is closed — a definite date has not been set, but more than likely with a few months — the same letter will be sent to Nashville or Atlanta for processing, then returned here for delivery. That obviously will require an extra day or two before delivery is possible. Whether the public accepts or can adapt to what promises to be extended delivery times remains to be seen.
Adjustments certainly will be needed, especially by postal patrons accustomed to prompt delivery of vital medicines and checks and by large-volume mailers — BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, EPB, Erlanger, Amazon, for example — whose operations depend on both the timely pick-up and delivery of mail and the presence of local postal officials to work through problems when they occur. Postal officials, who say closing the facility will save about $2 million annually, have not directly addressed those concerns.