Perhaps rain, sleet, and snow could not keep the U.S. Postal Service from its appointed rounds, but the wide availability of Internet technology may have ended its need to do so. The ability to access and send information electronic electronically -- correspondence, bills, and magazines -- have been eating into revenues, and, despite consistent price increases over the past several years, your local post office may not be able to afford to stay open much longer.
The U.S. General Accounting Office's Phillip Herr testified to Congress last Thursday that the U.S Postal Service "desperately needs to restructure, to remain viable. While there's been talk of knocking out the Saturday deliveries, the one that seems to have caught citizen's attention is a list of offices subject to closure. The Postal Regulatory Commission, an independent agency charged with regulating the U.S. Postal Service, published a list of 681 post offices that are under consideration for closure.
Such is the interest in this list, of citizens concerned about their local post offices, that the PRC's Web site has been inaccessible for at least several hours. The possible closures list is a mere 35k pdf document, yet overwhelming online interest has shut down the site. We have obtained a copy of the full closures list, however, and are hosting it for download here).
