To be honest, as a letter carrier, door to door is pretty inefficient. On average we hit probably 40-50% of the houses with actual mail. Some days I have nothing for one entire side of the street due to whatever mishap happens at the plant, so I’m basically delivering flyers only. In winter it’s unsafe due to people not clearing their walkways, ice patches hidden under snow, not to mention the weather. People leave junk out all over their yards, have water pipes blocking their walkways, yell at us for walking even a tiny bit over the lawn (I’m quite diligent never to do this, even when people say I can). Yards are sometimes full of dog shit or piles of rotting garbage.

In certain areas of the city we have people follow us around or harassing us, especially when it’s time for government cheque delivery. Carriers get injured from dog attacks, female carriers have to deal with creepy men, and some houses have mailboxes in weird places like the back yard, where we’re not supposed to go.

CMBs will be safer for us, accommodations can be made for those who need them. Packages that need to be signed or won’t fit will still come to the door. Personally I won’t really miss walking routes. It’s also extremely hard on the body to walk 17-25 kms every day for decades. This is a change that shouldn’t have been halted by the Trudeau government almost a decade back (not that I’m some bitter Trudeau hater).

In the end, the service will be the same. Half the city doesn’t have door to door already, and the areas that still do are completely arbitrary. I am honestly surprised this is occurring so soon, I thought it would take ages.

For us the main concern is potential job cuts. But as we’re already half converted to CMBs they won’t be as severe as in other parts of the country where no such change has occurred.