Canada Post installing community mailboxes in northwest Winnipeg

Canada Post has started installing community mailboxes in the first Winnipeg neighbourhoods that will soon lose door-to-door delivery.

Two areas in northwest Winnipeg, with postal codes starting with R2P and R2V, will be among the first in Canada to switch over to community mailboxes this fall.

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Crews were seen putting inthe mailboxes in West Kildonan on Thursday. On some streets, yellow tape marks rectangular plots of land where mailboxes are slated to be installed.

Keys will be mailed out to affected residents in the coming weeks and the mailboxes will be in use beginning in mid-October, meaning the days of homemail delivery are numbered for residents like Stephanie Karr.

"I like my letter carrier. She's efficient, quick, reliable, dependable," the 69-year-old told CBC News on Thursday.

The community mailbox that Karr will have to use is half a block away from her home, but she said she's concerned about safety.

"Because it's right at the corner, it's not indoors, how long is it going to be before we're going to have graffiti or it's going to be knocked over? How safe is our mail going to be?" she asked.

"I do worry about that. I was hoping that it would be indoors."

She also wondered how she could get her mail if the sidewalks are not properly plowed in the winter.

Union fighting to save mail delivery

The move to community mailboxes this fall will affect about 12,000 residential addresses and 70 businesses.

Another 11,000 addresses in the R2R and R2X postal code zones will get community mailboxes early next summer.

Canada Post has said rising costs and falling mail volumes have made it impossible to continue its traditional operations.

But the fight to save door-to-door delivery isn't over, says Ben Zorn, president of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers' local in Winnipeg.

"Where there's a political will, there's always a political way," he said.

Zorn said the new mailboxes means letter carrier routes are being cut by 50 per cent, and the union fears job cuts will follow.

"It's going to mean a loss of jobs in our community, but the biggest concern that we have is for the Crown corporation and the public service that it provides and the fact that Canadians haven't been appropriately consulted," he said.

Residents with health or mobility issues can request to opt out of the community mailboxes, but a Canada Post spokesperson told CBC News that less than one per cent of Winnipeggers have requested it to date.