Yesterday the Postal Service released a revision of its Network Rationalization plan to consolidate over two hundred mail processing facilities.
When the plan was originally announced on December 5, there were 252 facilities on the list. After the AMP (Area Mail Processing) studies were completed, a new list was released on Feb. 27, with 223 facilities approved for consolidation.
The Postal Service has decided to implement the plan in two phases. The first phase consists of two stages. The first stage of phase 1 will take place this summer, when some 48 facilities will be consolidated. The Postal Service will then suspend consolidations during the busy mail period of the elections and holidays, and then resume again in January. The second stage of phase 1 will include about 92 additional facilities, and it will begin in January.
Phase 2 of the plan will be implemented in 2014, with 89 or more consolidations taking place, and bring the total number of consolidation to 229 (the Feb. 27 list had 223 facilities approved for consolidation, plus six studies still ongoing). When the Postal Service released the lists this week, they were in a format that’s not very user friendly, so we’ve re-done the list in more manageable form. There's a map too. Here’s a list of the lists:
USPS list of AMP studies (2/27/2012)
USPS list of facilities to be consolidated summer 2012 (Phase 1, stage 1)
Google Fusion Table (best for sorting, charting, mapping, downloading, etc.)
If you spot an error in the STPO version of the lists, please hit the contact link at the top and let us know.
And here's a list of just some of the news articles that have come out over the past 24 hours about the new plan.
