Lawsuit could delay replacement for aging postal fleet

3 years ago 303

PORTLAND, Maine – Postal workers thrilled astatine the imaginable of making deliveries successful modern, comfy and environmentally affable vehicles are soldiering connected successful their aging, spartan trucks.

The superior fleet of vehicles — dating to 1987 — was owed to beryllium replaced nether a caller declaration but the winning bid for the caller trucks is being challenged. That means the transportation of caller trucks acceptable for 2023 could beryllium delayed.

“The longer this drags on, the much lives are astatine risk,” said John Graham, a postal bearer who operates 1 of the aged vehicles successful Portland, Maine.

Most workers don’t attraction which exemplary they get. They conscionable privation thing that’s safe.

More than 150 of the existent vehicles person caught fire. They deficiency capable heating and cooling, they present mediocre substance system and they’re becoming hard to maintain.

The Grumman Long Life Vehicle delivered connected its name. They went into work from 1987 to 1994 with a committedness of a 24-year work life. The oldest of them person survived astir 34 years of grueling usage connected the regular message routes from snowy Maine to sunny California.

Most postal carriers volition archer you they weren't truthful large adjacent successful their prime.

They're built connected a General Motors chassis with a assemblage provided by Grumman and they're powered by a four-cylinder motor that was expected to present substance system — but successful world provides astir 9 miles per gallon (4 kilometers per liter) connected stop-and-go routes. Missing are modern information features similar airbags and anti-lock brakes.

A glaring responsibility successful Maine's acold winters is inadequate heating.

Even worse is the deficiency of aerial conditioning that allows temperatures to soar to unsafe levels wrong the vehicles connected blistery summertime days. A postal idiosyncratic died from a vigor changeable earlier this summer during a vigor question successful California.

Fires person go a predominant hazard. The Postal Times keeps a moving tally on with photos connected its website. There were 19 of them truthful acold this year, including 5 successful July.

In Florida, Kathleen Shunstrom witnessed 1 of them going up successful flames. She opened her blinds to spot her section carrier’s postal motortruck ablaze successful her neighbor’s driveway successful Niceville, connected the Florida Panhandle.

The bearer noticed her conveyance was smoking aft delivering a package. By the clip idiosyncratic dialed 911, it had burst into flames. No 1 was hurt.

“It was scary to see,” said Shunstrom, who captured video of the flames connected July 24 connected her cellphone. “It went up truthful fast.”

The U.S. Postal Service has much than 230,000 vehicles. That includes 190,000 section transportation vehicles, and much than 141,000 of those are Grumman LLVs, said USPS spokesperson Kim Frum.

“The existent transportation fleet has reached a captious constituent wherever it is nary longer cost-effective to support the fleet successful bid to supply reliable and businesslike transportation work for citizens portion gathering the needs of carriers,” Frum said.

A competitory bid process was expected to people a turning point.

Wisconsin-based Oshkosh Defense won the bid successful February for the Next Generation Delivery Vehicle with the archetypal deliveries acceptable for precocious 2023.

It's a greener conveyance with modern amenities similar clime power and information features similar aerial bags, backup cameras and collision avoidance. The trucks are besides taller to marque it easier for postal carriers to drawback packages and parcels that person been making up a acold greater information of their deliveries, adjacent earlier the pandemic.

But a losing bidder, an Ohio institution called Workhorse Group, challenged the fairness of the determination successful June.

There's nary deadline for protestation decisions, but probe suggests that declaration challenges mostly instrumentality astir 4 to 5 months from filing to decision, according to David Ralston and Frank Murray, Washington-based attorneys from Foley & Lardner LLP.

The archetypal declaration for Oshkosh Defense was for $482 cardinal for completing and investigating the last design, and retooling and gathering retired its mill to nutrient state and electrical versions. But the worth could agelong into billions of dollars if Oshkosh delivers 165,000 vehicles implicit the adjacent decade. Workhorse Group enactment the full declaration worth astatine up to $3.1 cardinal successful its declaration challenge.

With truthful overmuch wealth astatine stake, it's imaginable that immoderate determination could spell to the Court of Appeals, which would widen the timetable adjacent further out. For now, Oshkosh is continuing to get started adjacent arsenic the situation plays out.

Oshkosh Defense, which projected a premix of state and electrical trucks, and Workhorse, which projected an all-electric fleet, declined comment.

In Portland, Graham knows his conveyance reasonably well. The rear-wheel thrust vehicles rotation astir successful icy conditions, truthful helium knows to beryllium careful. They reek of exhaust fumes. The transmission sometimes slips retired of gear.

But the large ailment now, successful the summer, is the heat. There's a instrumentality connected the dashboard but that doesn't chill things down much.

Graham said that during the summertime helium throws his luncheon connected the dashboard astatine mid-morning. “It'll beryllium steaming blistery by lunchtime,” helium said.

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This communicative has been updated to close the marque of chassis utilized successful the Grumman LLV. It is simply a General Motors chassis, not a Ford chassis.

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Follow David Sharp connected Twitter astatine https://twitter.com/David_Sharp_AP

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