Doorstep mail delivery ends for 12,400 Winnipeggers

More than 12,000 Winnipeggers were among the first Canadians on Monday to be part of Canada's Post's plan to phase out door-to-door mail delivery.

The changeover affects12,400homeownersand 70 businesses in The Maples, Garden City, West Kildonan, and Margaret Park, whowill now get their mail in community mailboxes.

They have postal codes beginning in R2P and R2V.

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Marilyn Loden, who lives in The Maples, said she's happy with the change.

"It's better for me because if I'm not at home.I'm away a lot so I have to get my daughter to come get my mail, where if I have it in a boxthen it'll just be there when I get back," she said.

But one of her neighbours, Philip Kahanovitch, says he's angry he has to use a community mailbox that is two blocks from his home, even though another one is just a block away.

"Once the snow falls, it gets pretty treacherous here," he said.

Kahanovitch added that he's worried about elderly neighbours who can't walk to their community mailboxes.

Canada Post says customers with mobility issues should contact the agency to discuss other options, such as arranging for mail to be delivered to their homes once a week.

Loden said she is concerned that mail carriers may lose their jobs a concern shared by Ben Zorn, president of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers' Winnipeg local.

Zorn says 50 per cent of mail carrier jobs have been lost in the parts of Winnipeg that are experiencing the phase-out in door-to-door delivery.

Attrition has meant no one is out of work yet, but Zorn warned that things could change.

"If Canada Post rolls this out over the next four to five years, there may certainly be a need for layoffs that is the worst-case scenario," he said.

Both Zorn and Kahanovitch want Canada Post to stop the phase out immediately, but that does not appear to be in the plans.

The next postal codes to lose home delivery in Winnipeg are R2R and R2X.That will happen in early 2015.

Canada Post wants urban door-to-door delivery phased out by 2019.