Area Residents Face Unresponsive Postal Delivery Service

In August, a group of residents who live along Swanson Road and Whippoorwill Lane in Lake County had their mailboxes moved from the loca­tion they had been at for 50 years to a newly resurfaced stretch of Larsmont Road. This move raises safety concerns for both mail delivery personnel and for homeowners, some of whom will have to walk half a mile to retrieve their mail. The new location on Larsmont Road puts residents at risk be­cause motorists tend to travel on Larsmont at speeds ranging be­tween 30 and 50 miles an hour. Residents are also concerned about a blind curve that is located near to the current location of the mailboxes. The Two Harbors Postmaster has expressed con­cern about the safety of delivery personnel because there is lim­ited space for them to get out of traffic when they stop to make de­liveries at the Swan­son Road location. Additionally, the ex­isting road is narrow and the Postmaster ex­pressed concern about delivery personnel be­ing able to turn their vehicles around safe­ly. All of this will be compounded for both residents and USPS delivery personnel when winter weather sets in.

Larsmont Road was resurfaced as part of a Lake County Highway Department road im­provement project and the Highway Depart­ment has gotten in­volved in an attempt to help find a solution to the mailbox location problem. As of the end of August, the Post Of­fice has suspended de­livery to the mailbox­es on Swanson Road, forcing some residents to go into Two Har­bors to pick up their mail. Some of these residents are retired or have disabilities. Ac­cording to a Letter to the Editor published in last week’s edition of the North Shore Jour­nal, The Two Harbors Postmaster has said that, due to a “national trend not to add new routes”, the Swanson Road, Whippoorwill Lane resident’s mail­boxes will have to remain on Larsmont Road.

In rural areas, mail­boxes grouped togeth­er are a fairly common thing but when safety on all sides is of con­cern, it seems like there has to be a solution that is better that what has currently been of­fered to the folks who live in the Swanson Road, Whippoorwill Lane neighborhood. Individual mailboxes at the mouth of each resident’s driveway would be a safer, more efficient solution to the problem and since postal delivery has been happening in the neighborhood for the past 50 years, it seems like the “national trend not to add new routes” doesn’t make sense.

The unofficial motto of the United States Postal Service was, “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds”. Though we all should appreciate and celebrate the work of USPS employees, it seems like that old motto doesn’t neces­sarily apply in 2024. The risks of snow, rain, heat, gloom of night, blind corners and 30 to 50 mile an hour speed limits are now applied to USPS customers and carri­ers alike. There has to be a simple solution to this problem and the people who live in the Swanson Road, Whippoorwill Lane neighborhood deserve better.

It’s been said Unit­ed States Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, has a negative track record of passing reg­ulations that make postal delivery less efficient. Is he the guy behind the “national trend to not add new routes”? If so, he and others may have some explaining to do. In the meantime, the peo­ple who live on Swan­son Road and Whip­porwill Lane continue to face safety concerns and frustration when making a simple trip to the mailbox.