Photo: Chaiel Schaffel/WBZ NewsRadio
MEDWAY, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — It has been more than a year since the Medway Post Office on Main Street unexpectedly closed, and residents and officials are demanding it reopen its doors.
Residents have been irate that the only alternate post office in town is a small retail store with a tiny parking lot that spills out onto busy Village Street.
“I have to come down here and fight traffic and everything,” one resident told WBZ NewsRadio. “Back out and almost get killed a few times with people driving around.”
On top of that, officials said it is out of P.O. boxes and is not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. One resident complained the store closes for an hour every day. Now, some have been going to other towns to avoid the small shop.
“They either go to Millis or Holliston or Bellingham, and it’s a real inconvenience for our residents,” Medway Select Board member Dennis Crowley said.
Crowley is among those fighting to get the old location on Main Street back. He said it was more centrally located with ample parking. He’s tried everything, even contacting the U.S. Postal Service in Washington.
“The answer was no, Medway will not get a full-service post office,” Crowley said.
Read More: Ethel Kennedy, Human Rights Advocate And Wife Of RFK, Dies At 96
He said he was told that USPS is “consolidating post offices as leases come up,” and that they felt the retail store was enough for the town. But Crowley pointed out that the staff in Washington had never visited the store to make that assessment.
He also said residents cannot stop their mail online when they go on vacation anymore because “Medway is no longer considered a post office location.” And the only way to do that is to fill out a physical yellow card at the location in Bellingham.
The Massachusetts Congressional Delegation is also involved in the fight. In an August letter to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, the delegation said that “Medway is still without an adequate Post Office location.”
“The federal delegation for Medway has repeatedly written to you — on October 4, 2023 and November 8, 2023 — urging you to reopen the Medway Post Office, but we have yet to receive an adequate response about USPS’s future plans for Medway,” the letter said.
The delegation said this appears to be part of a larger statewide problem with declining postal performance “which has fostered inequitable access to basic postal functions across urban and rural communities.”
For Crowley and the Medway Board of Selectmen, the current game plan is to try to get the retail store moved to a more convenient location with more parking.
For its part, the USPS said the post office location closed because they could not reach an agreement with the landlord. But, they did not comment on the current concerns.
WBZ NewsRadio's Chaiel Schaffel (@CSchaffelWBZ) reports
Follow WBZ NewsRadio: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | iHeartmedia App | TikTok