Editor:
One mail delivery van and driver would deliver thousands of pieces of mail door-to-door each day.
Now thousands of households will drive to community boxes each day to see if an expected letter or correspondence has arrived.
I do hope the environmentalists are taking notice. Across Canada this will mean air pollution to the extreme.
Seniors or limited mobility persons now will not receive mail at home. Walking on snow and ice for many is impossible. No bus service door-to-door possibly blocks away if available. Not to mention it’s all uphill or down in Williams Lake.
Some older community mailboxes are in a turnout so you do not stop on the travelled portion of the roadway.
Not so with the new boxes on South Lakeside.
The mail truck will stop on the travelled portion of the road to leave mail in boxes.
You, when picking up your mail, will also have to stop on the travelled portion of the roadway. If you do not have your four-way flashers on and are rear-ended you are at fault no exception, points and fine.
If you rear-end someone picking up mail you are automatically at fault, no exception, points and fine.
This new hazard did not exist with house-to-house delivery by Canada Post.
The only place on South Lakeside with a shoulder that could be built out wide enough to accommodate mail pick up and delivery and not interfere with road traffic would be from the Seventh Day Adventist School almost to Renner Road.
All other road shoulders are too narrow.
This build up would have to be on the railroad side of South Lakeside Drive. Moving mailboxes does not solve the problem of snow pushed sideways by plow trucks and graders and the fact as soon as snow starts the roadway only gets more narrow and impossible to walk on.
Moving the boxes to the south end of Lot 112 moves them into a three-way intersection and stop signs in both directions on Juniper Street and Birch Hill Street.
This does not solve the problem of mail delivery and safety.
Easy solutions go back to house-to-house delivery for residents’ safety and postal employees’ safety.
Peter Epp
Williams Lake
