Canada Post is planning to end home delivery. Here’s how community

If your dog goes crazy every time the mail delivery person shows up at your door, you may be relieved to know that it soon may no longer be a problem.

But beyond that, a lot of people are uncertain what the pending demise of door-to-door mail delivery means for them.

Canada Post said on Monday that it’s moving ahead with a transformation plan that includes a transition to community mailboxes, eventually ending home delivery. It’s something Public Services and Procurement Canada directed last year — as it faces what’s been called an “existential” crisis and faltering finances.

Toronto city Coun. Josh Matlow understands Canada Post needs to adapt. But he, like many Canadians, has plenty of questions about the switch to community mailboxes and concerns “about everything from beauty and design to safety and accessibility.”

Here are answers to some of the questions you might have about the the future of mail delivery in Canada.

How soon could this happen?

In a statement to CBC News, Canada Post says it’s beginning to take the “initial steps” of its plan, first consulting with the bargaining agents for its unionized workers, represented by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), and then with municipal officials and other stakeholders.

The Crown corporation will also have to collaborate with the federal government to eventually amend the Canadian Postal Service Charter, which currently states that it “will deliver to every address in Canada,” including “to the door.”

Currently, about four million addresses still have mail delivered to the door.

Joël Lightbound, minister of Government Transformation, Public Works and Procurement, said last fall that the process to eliminate most door-to-door service would take about nine years, with most of it expected to be completed in the first four.

Where will mailboxes go in big cities?

There’s a lot of uncertainty about how Canada Post will go about installing community mailboxes in big cities. Urban planners who spoke with CBC News suspect that sidewalks will be a likely option.

But not an ideal one.

“Sidewalks are already overcrowded with a lot of urban furniture, which reduces the space for flows,” said Richard Shearmur, a professor at the school of urban planning at McGill University in Montreal.

That includes waste receptacles, bus shelters, lampposts and advertising boards — and that’s not even factoring in all the people, strollers and mobility devices moving about and coming in and out of buildings.

Other options, he says, could include placing the community mailboxes at the edges of city parks…