{"id":703,"date":"2009-12-23T17:27:38","date_gmt":"2009-12-23T17:27:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pluginamerica.eh\/going-postal\/"},"modified":"2023-03-07T12:59:18","modified_gmt":"2023-03-07T17:59:18","slug":"going-postal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pluginamerica.org\/going-postal\/","title":{"rendered":"Going Postal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"asset asset-image at-xid-6a0120a635cd9d970c01287677ddcb970c  alignleft\" title=\"US postal Ford van\" src=\"https:\/\/pluginamerica.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/6a0120a635cd9d970c01287677ddcb970c-320pi.jpg\" alt=\"US postal Ford van\" border=\"0\" \/>Today as my postal carrier&#8217;s rumbling old van heaved to a stop and planted itself in front of my mailbox while delivering Christmas card cheer, I could not help but imagine how much more pleasant it might be for me, the mailman and the air if that same van were electric.<\/p>\n<p>All year, every year &#8220;the mail must go through&#8221;, and the U.S. Postal Service has accomplished that feat with very little interruption since <a title=\"electric vehicles in USPS\" href=\"http:\/\/www.usps.com\/postalhistory\/_pdf\/ElectricVehicles.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">1775<\/a> using a variety of transportation modes varying from human horse power and horse-drawn wagons to massive 18-wheelers. Furthermore, delivering mail courtesy of kilowatts is not a new and revolutionary idea. In 2001 Ford Motor Company actually delivered 500 <a title=\"Ford Ranger EVs for USPS\" href=\"http:\/\/www.megawattmotorworks.com\/display.asp dismode=article&amp;artid=345\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ford Ranger EVs<\/a>&#8212; mostly in California and Washington DC &#8212; for USPS use. However, EVs and POs got very well acquainted much earlier than that. A speed record for mail collection was set back in 1899 by a Columbia electric automobile &#8212; taking half the time of the more common horse-drawn wagon. And &#8220;during the 1911 Christmas season&#8221; &#8212; exactly 98 years ago &#8211;&#8221; <a title=\"history of electric vehicles in New York\" href=\"http:\/\/www.usps.com\/postalhistory\/_pdf\/ElectricVehicles.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">New York&#8217;s electric vehicles<\/a> operated night and day with batteries and drivers charging every eight hours.&#8221; In fact, EVs were consistently used in the U.S. postal service until about 1917.<\/p>\n<p>Clearly, then, it is a back-to-the-future scenario for the US postal service and EVs. According to the Washington Post, &#8220;The postal service operates the <a title=\"postal service fleet\" href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2009\/12\/16\/AR2009121604163.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">largest civilian fleet of vehicles<\/a> in the world with about 220,000 vehicles traveling more than 1.2 billion miles each year.&#8221; Most postal carriers work stop-and-go routes averaging about 25 miles. Even though modern EVs are capable of traveling 4 to 9.6 times greater distances, <a title=\"postal routes in electric vans\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ecoworld.com\/transportation\/ford-delivers-electric-vehicles-to-post-office.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">low-mileage postal routes<\/a> seem destined to pair up with easy maintenance, pollution-free all-electric vans. <a title=\"postal electric van\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ecoworld.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Eco World<\/a> found that many postal routes required up to 400 stops per day &#8212; something that is very taxing to traditional gasoline or diesel powered vans with attendant high maintenance costs, downtime and noxious tailpipe emissions fouling neighborhoods all across the country.<\/p>\n<p>That is why the timely introduction of Congressman Jose Serrano&#8217;s bill, HR 4399, couldn&#8217;t be more relevant and overdue. The bill, if passed, would legitimize the testing and the deployment of 20,000 electric delivery vans for the U.S. postal service.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s hope Serrano&#8217;s &#8220;e-Drive&#8221; bill accelerates through the usual house and senate roadblocks \/ political machinations and ultimately . . . delivers.<\/p>\n<p>Posted by Linda Nicholes<\/p>\n<p>Photo courtesy of EcoWorld<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today as my postal carrier&#8217;s rumbling old van heaved to a stop and planted itself in front of my mailbox while delivering Christmas card cheer, I could not help but imagine how much more pleasant it might be for me, the mailman and the air if that same van were[&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","inline_featured_image":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - 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