Move Your Damn Car – Vol. 2 – USPS

by Prince Of Petworth June 14, 2016 at 12:55 pm 16 Comments

move

A reader nominates the notorious United States Postal Service:

“This picture is taken in front of 1025 Connecticut ave at about 915 am this morning. The mail van is sitting there with its blinkers on and no driver in sight.”

Should you spot a selfish jackwagon double parked in front of a streetcar, or during rush hour please send a photo to [email protected] with a location/time where you saw it. If it turns out there was a life threatening emergency or a baby was being born I promise to offer up a prompt apology.

justinbc

Just in case someone asks (this info is from 2013, so not sure if it’s still up to date):
“USPS is exempt from vehicle licensing requirements and does not have to pay parking tickets or municipality fees. It also has power of eminent domain and its own police force.”
- justinbc
  
  Also, since FedEx and UPS are obviously not government run organizations they do not benefit from the same exemptions. They actually have a ticket allowance factored into their business plan because they know it’s sometimes “unavoidable”.
- James W.
  
  Mail trucks do this all over the city. Generally they will carry a block’s worth of mail, make their rounds, then go back to their truck. Where else would they park it?
accendo

There’s often one of their trucks blocking part of the very short right lane on 18th, just south of H St NW during the evening rush hour.
MtP

USPS are constant offenders on Connecticut Ave during rush hour. They routinely block the right inbound lane in the afternoon (when inbound is only two lanes), often times just north of Porter, which grinds traffic to a complete halt because there is no way to get through when the other lane backs up with people turning left onto Porter. I’m normally forgiving for certain double or illegal parking issues, but this is unacceptable and really grinds things to a standstill.
TJ

I tried to complain about a postal truck (number 3521115) that parks repeatedly in the southbound 17th St. NW bike lane during rush hour. It is often parked on the street while delivering to apartment buildings in the area that HAVE LOADING DOCKS WITH OFF-STREET PARKING.

I never did find a way to lodge the complaint, so yes USPS does appear to be above reproach.
- neighbor
  
  This might be the building’s fault. They probably would rather have the truck blocking the street than blocking their loading dock.
  .
  Generally this is a problem with the city, not USPS. If the city decided they wanted to pursue a more orderly mail delivery/loading regime they could. The administration simply doesn’t care.
- James W.
  
  Is it really that hard to simply deviate out of the bike lane to go around it? I’m not sure at what point bicycle lanes became sacrosanct such that they can never, any any circumstance, become temporarily blocked. I just rode across the city and had to maneuver around a dozen random obstacles. Ho hum. It happens. Life goes on. This is part of living in a community. Can we all get along?
neighbor

I get annoyed at package delivery trucks and food delivery trucks blocking bike lanes and traffic lanes all the time, but you cannot blame the drivers for these problems. Residents want retail and restaurants, but they also want parking and don’t want nighttime deliveries in residential areas. So when the hell are these guys supposed to deliver? And where should they park?
.
The current situation is hugely dangerous to bikers pedestrians and cars since you are constantly weaving to avoid standing trucks at all times of day. What DC needs is to eliminate substantial parking downtown and in the most dense areas and create commercial loading zones. For downtown the city should also allow, encourage, or require nighttime deliveries depending on the particular area.
- TJ
  
  Well, this particular delivery truck is often blocking the delivery docks AND the bike lane, so I’m not sure the building has anything to do with it. My issue isn’t so much the double parking in the bike lane, but that it is happening during rush hour on a regular basis. Simply starting rounds at 10:00 a.m. would help a lot, and make the roads safer.
JohnH

This is also no different from UPS, FedEx, etc.
.
It sucks, but in this case – considering they do it all over the country like this – I don’t think it’s really worth putting much energy/anger into….
Its_Dave_from_DC

Really OP?

SO WHAT THAT IT BLOCKS THE LANES! The carrier is not going to be there all day, and they will move as soon as they are done.

Can you for a second imagine going to a distribution facility, sorting mail, boxes and catalogs, then planning routes for these deliveries all up and down the city day in and day out?

Six days a week, every single week.

These folks deliver cards, bills, and will even pick up mail from your home.

You can live in DC, and mail a letter to Alaska for as little as $0.47.

Worried about blocking lanes. This group!
- Anonymous
  
  Spoken like someone who has never worked downtown, and never set foot downtown during morning rush hour. Well done, “Dave!”
- anon
  
  Perhaps Dave missed the entire premise of this series — i.e., that double-parking on a major street, during rush hour, etc. is a “selfish jackwagon” move.
- victoria
  
  Yes. Just add (very) temporary lane block to the whole “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” And yes, that is actually from ancient Persia, but really??? You live in a city. This is how a city works.
- justinbc
  
  But how do I get them to stop delivering junk mail to my house? It would make their job so much easier…

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