Door to door delivery will be phased out by summer 2015 for a majority of St. Albert residences.
Canada Post announced this week that neighbourhoods in St. Albert and Sherwood Park with postal codes starting with T8A or T8N will be converted to the community mailbox system by early next summer.
A news release notes that encompasses 9,951 addresses, including 148 businesses, in St. Albert.
“We’re now beginning the notification process,” said Jon Hamilton, a spokesperson for Canada Post, in an interview. “There will be information in there and there will also be a survey.”
Those notifications should have arrived in mailboxes around the city this week or will appear early next week.
Hamilton said they’re hoping for a good response on the surveys, which ask people about locations and style of boxes and other feedback to help with their planning.
“That’s been very helpful for the 11 communities we’ve been converting in 2014,” Hamilton said. “That type of feedback is incredibly helpful as we’re building the plans and working with the municipalities.”
He said in other conversions an overwhelming majority of people have preferred a smaller number of boxes closer to their homes rather than a more concentrated system that’s perhaps further away.
For those who’d like to provide even more information, there’s a more detailed survey online.
In St. Albert, there are about 11,500 door-to-door residential stops, and about 11,000 residences that already use a community mailbox system. There are about 2,500 apartment or condo lobby boxes, Hamilton said.
“So we’re converting 9,800 which means the vast majority of door-to-door customers in St. Albert,” Hamilton said.
The rest of St. Albert that will remain on door-to-door delivery will be switched over to the community mailbox system during a later phase of the change.
In December 2013 Canada Post announced that it will transition door-to-door delivery to community mailboxes over the next five years.
Their news release noted there will be no employee layoffs as a result of the change, rather the Canada Post workforce will be reduced by attrition.
