The United States Postal Service (USPS) is temporarily halting some consolidation within its network after delivery delays have plagued some major metropolitan areas and drawn the ire of consumers and lawmakers alike.

Weeks after a Senate hearing that saw Postmaster General Louis DeJoy field questions regarding delayed mail deliveries in markets like Atlanta, Houston and Richmond, Va., a bipartisan group of 26 senators called on USPS to “pause all changes” under its network modernization plan, until the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) can fully study the impacts of the changes.

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In response to the callout, the USPS boss told members of Congress that the courier will hold off on consolidating mail centers at nearly 60 locations until at least Jan. 1, 2025. DeJoy said the USPS would not advance any efforts after that date until it advised the lawmakers of plans to do so, and from there, would only implement them “at a moderated pace.”

This plan would include moving mail processing further away from local communities, by transferring operations out of local facilities into more distant hubs, which the agency identifies as regional processing and distribution centers (RPDC) and sorting and delivery centers. By streamlining mail processing into fewer hubs, the USPS expected to save anywhere between $133 million and $177 million per year.

Multiple markets that have implemented these changes have seen issues with on-time mail delivery, with the senators pointing out in their May 8 letter that “it is not clear these changes will improve efficiency or costs.”

While USPS backpedals from its network modernization initiatives, which are part of the larger 10-year Delivering for America turnaround plan, the agency also is looking to recoup costs elsewhere.

As the courier rethinks how parcel volume is entered into its network, it wants to increase prices for high-volume, large- and medium-sized enterprises, proposing a 25 percent price hike per shipment on average for its Parcel Select ground delivery service.

Each individual price increase for Parcel Select users would be contingent on where the volume is entered into its network, meaning that shipments that are brought in further upstream will see lower price hikes.

For example, Parcel Select shipments entered at USPS destination delivery units, which are the final stop in the agency’s network before a package reaches the end customer, will see the steepest increases at 43.4 percent on average.