By Tina Comeau
THE VANGUARD
NovaNewsNow.com
Many people in Yarmouth County accustomed to collecting their mail from mailboxes at the end of their driveways may soon have some bad news delivered to them instead.
Canada Post is conducting a review of the safety of rural mailboxes along some routes in Yarmouth County and many mailboxes are receiving a failing grade.
Canada Post says it will work with residents to try to come up with options to, if possible, reverse a failing grade so mail delivery can continue as usual. But the likelihood is that the public will see more community mailboxes springing up in the region.
In correspondence sent to Yarmouth municipal council, Canada Post provided preliminary results from the assessments of three of seven rural routes: RR1, RR2 and RR4. Of 1,347 mailboxes looked at, 601 mailboxes failed the traffic safety criteria.
Of the remaining: 395 mailboxes passed and mail delivery can continue as usual; 274 have to be relocated to a safer location so mail delivery can continue and 43 were rescheduled for a full review at a later time but will receive mail delivery as usual for now.
When determining if a mailbox is safe, besides monitoring traffic volume and speed, the criteria that Canada Post sets out include the size of the shoulder, sight lines and whether it’s safe for a mail delivery driver to stop.
But George Nickerson, the president of the Yarmouth local of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, said the criteria are very strict and difficult to pass. And, he told members of Yarmouth municipal council at their Aug. 11 meeting, it was done without input from the union.
He said the assessments that have been completed on the rural routes have high fail rates. Around Overton, he said 215 of 331 mailboxes have fallen in the fail category.
Nickerson suggested this review is being done under the guise of health and safety when in reality it will eventually lead to less work for postal employees.
Members of council said the high number of mailboxes in the fail category is alarming and flabbergasting. Council approved a motion to write letters to the area’s MP, MLA and Canada Post to express their concern. These letters will be copied to other municipal units in the region.
“Rural Canada is getting the short end of the stick,” said Councillor John Cunningham.
“We have to make it known we’re not going to stand for this,” added Councillor Ken Crosby.
Warden Leland Anthony said he understands the need for safety, but he said the criteria is unfair to residents who can’t go out and widen the roads on which they live.
Canada Post stresses it’s priority is to maintain rural mailbox delivery wherever possible and it says that changing a customer’s mode of delivery is only considered as a last resort after consultation with the customer.
Terry McDonald, coordinator of rural delivery safety for the Atlantic Region, told the Yarmouth Vanguard that people whose mailboxes have failed will be contacted in person to make them aware of the situation and to work out possible solutions.
“The first option that we would consider is to try and find a place where their mailbox can be relocated to make sure they pass. So if there is any possibility that we can find a safer location or a location that meets our criteria, than we will advise the customer of that and give them some time to relocate their box,” he said.
But failing this, the options left are a community mailbox or a PO box, the latter, of which, is limited.
In the correspondence sent to the municipality, Canada Post says later this year delivery planners will be working on finding suitable locations to install community mailboxes for customers who can no longer have a mailbox on or near their property.
Meanwhile, people whose mailboxes passed the safety review, need to be relocated or have been flagged for future review will be notified by letter. People can also contact a customer service line at 1-866-501-1669 if they have questions.
For his part, Nickerson believes this isn’t as much about safety as it is about saving money. He said in one are of the province where mailboxes failed and were determined unsafe, it took a year to set up a community mailbox. During that year mail continued to be delivered to these “unsafe” mailboxes.
“I hope there is something we can do to fight back against this because a rural way of life is deteriorating,” he said.
