It appears the Postal Service is trimming the fat on some of their less-used neighborhood mailboxes. A couple mailboxes around Ballard - on the corners of 67th and 10th, and 63rd and 11th - have notices alerting residents they're being removed next week, blogs My Ballard. Post Office spokesman Ernie Swanson says a "volume density study" is conducted on mailboxes over a two week period. If a mailbox gets 25 items or less a day, it's a candidate for removal.
I've noticed these changes: at the Bitter Lake station on N. 145th, later pickup times on the outside boxes have been whited out; at the North City station near NE 175th and 15th NE, one of the two outside mailboxes was removed, meaning the remaining one is often packed to the opening! How foolish!
Recently, I found a web site that's been most useful in locating a mailbox and, equally important, figuring out the pickup times, important for those of us who mail Netflix and/or Blockbuster DVDs by mail. See:
http://www.payphone-project.com/mailboxes/zip_codes/9/98155.html
and help keep it up-to-date!