Northern and Central Appalachia, Corn Belt localities would bear brunt of shorter post-office hours

The folks at USA Today have come up with vivid illustrations of the geographic impact of the reduced hours that the Postal Service is imposing on more than 13,000 rural post offices, as an alternative to its initial plan to close 3,700 of them. Meghan Hoyer reports that many of the communities are "places where businesses depend on the mail and residents use mail delivery for everything from prescriptions to correspondence" because they lack broadband Internet and reliable cell-phone service.

The interactive maps with Hoyer's story show offices that the USPS proposes to open two, four and six hours a day. Here's the composite map (click here for interactive version):

"The cuts would strike a line through Appalachia," Hoyer notes. "The states with counties that have the highest concentration of affected offices are on the Appalachian Trail: Maine, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont and West Virginia. In Alaska and some Plains states — Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas — more than 60 percent of offices are on the block for reductions as counter service drops to six, four or two hours a day. Most urban areas are not slated to be affected." (Read more)