ELYRIA — Elyria residents may see their mail delivered by a new face or at a different time starting today.

Route changes are coming to the area to deal with the decline in the volume of mail postal carriers are delivering, said Scott Lander, the officer in charge of the Elyria post office.

This is an issue affecting the Postal Service nationwide as mail volume has declined by 20 million pieces this year from 2006. As a result, the Postal Service is in the process of reviewing and re-evaluating delivery routes across the country to make them more efficient during this time of financial distress.

The Postal Service is currently projecting a loss of $7 billion this fiscal year.

In Elyria, where approximately 590,000 pieces of mail are delivered on average each week to 32,000 addresses, the evaluation led to the elimination of 2½ routes, Lander said. Elyria’s mail volume is down 13 percent this year from last year, he said.

The addresses attached to the eliminated routes have been absorbed by one of the remaining five routes and likely will result in some residents receiving their mail later than usual.

“It will all depend on where in the route the person has been placed,” said Victor Dubina, a spokesman for the Postal Service.

None of the 79 carriers working out of the Elyria Post Office will lose their jobs as a result of the route changes.

Lander said the routes were consolidated in a way that keeps the Elyria unit intact. One route was eliminated near the intersection of Clark Street and Fairlawn Avenue. A second was cut near Elyria Catholic High School. A delivery route near Midway Mall was combined with an auxiliary collection route in the same area, Lander said.

The route changes will be evaluated for six months.

“Some times they look good on paper, but we realize down the road a change needs to be made,” Dubina said.

Contact Lisa Roberson at 329-7121 or lroberson@chroniclet.com.

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