How does mail get to the Grand Canyon?

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Neil Baker asks:

Does the U.S. Postal Service still deliver mail to the Grand Canyon?

When delivering mail to the Havasupai Tribe in the Grand Canyon, the United States Postal Service doesn’t rely on its boxy, recognizable fleet of vehicles. It has to depend on something that can navigate the tough terrain: a mule train.

One wrangler on horseback, accompanied by 10-22 mules, treks down a 9-mile path down to the village of Supai, where about 200 people reside. The entire trip to the village takes about three hours, while getting back up takes about five hours, according to a fact sheet on the U.S. Postal Service’s website.

The Havasupai Tribe regularly gets letters and packages just like other parts of the country, with mail being delivered to the region five days a week.

The Post Office’s commitment to remote delivery

The U.S. Postal Service formed in the early 1770s with the aim of connecting the nation, said Christopher Shaw, a postal service historian and policy analyst.

“The idea is that the post office should deliver to all Americans,” Shaw said.

And that obligation can get expensive, but Shaw said the Post Office’s goal is not to make a profit.

“It's set up on the basis of breaking even,” Shaw said.

A majority of post offices in the country, especially ones in rural and small towns, run a deficit, Shaw said.

They take the revenue from the post offices that do run a surplus and use that money to help compensate for the routes that don’t make money, Shaw said.

Delivering mail in Manhattan, for example, helps them generate revenue because the area is denser and there’s a high volume of business mail, Shaw explained.

Concerns about future funding

Even though the Post Office has made it a commitment to deliver to areas like Supai, are experts concerned about its ability to keep running?

“I think that it is always a concern. One thing about the Post Office is that it's only in the last 50 years that they came up with the idea that it should be self-funding,” Shaw said.

About 25% of the Post Office’s operating expenses used to be funded through Congressional appropriations. Although it still gets some money from Congress, it primarily funds its operations through the sales of its own products and services.

“It was a struggle in the ‘70s and ‘80s. In the ‘90s and into the 2000s, it was working better. And then it's been a struggle ever since the Great Recession,” Shaw said.

Since then, more people have diverted to electronic forms of communication. However, more packages are being delivered, which has helped compensate for the decline in physical mail, Shaw said.

To help fix the Post Office’s financing issues, Shaw said he thinks Congress should be able to appropriate money to help the USPS “fulfill its public service mandate when necessary.”

There could also be improvements in their ability to borrow and invest, Shaw said.

The Postal Service’s borrowing limit is set at $15 billion, which is the same level it’s been since the 1990s, Shaw said.

And the Postal Service can only make investments in Treasury bonds, while most private companies are able to invest in higher-yielding assets, Shaw said.

“This is a service that people depend on. It’s essential. We don't look to other government services to make a profit. We don't ask the U.S. military to make a profit or the Department of Transportation to make a profit,” Shaw said.