A Postal Divide?

Will consolidation of postal facilities in the name of cost-containment and service efficiency actually erode postal service as a universal service?

Will it unleash the same "we-them" forces that exist within the digital divide?

Mark Hare, a local columnist for the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, in Rochester, New York, in an op-ed looks at the potential consolidation and closure of several postal stations in Rochester, and asks whether the plan will end up hurting Rochester's urban poor.

The consolidation plan -- the "Rochester Metropolitan Facilities Unitary Plan" -- will be the subject of discussion this Thursday at a USPS-sponsored community meeting in Rochester.

Hare writes: "I think it's pretty clear there will be fewer retail outlets in the city, and that many of those folks who really do need the Post Office will not have transportation to the community meeting."

He quotes Gene Sydor, the station manager at the downtown post office on Cumberland Street, on the import of USPS presence in the a poor neighborhood.

"Last year at this station," Sydor says, "we sold 23,000 money orders." There is a population in poor neighborhoods that has no access to checking accounts. "There are people who use this as a bank," he says. When the S.S.I. disability checks come out, "the line is through the building," he says, with people cashing checks and buying money orders to pay bills — rather than using pricier check-cashing establishments. These are the same people who need to purchase stamps in person to put their bills in the mail."