How long does it take a letter to get to its destination if mailed in the same city?

Answer 1

This depends on destination, pickup times, etc., but it probably will
In my experience, taking a letter to the post office gets it to its destination a day earlier than sending it from my mailbox. And getting the letter in earlier in the day can shave a day off delivery, too, but not always. There's no difference between the post office and the blue boxes as long as you beat their pickup times. If you check those blue mailboxes, you'll see they have a schedule on them that tells you what the various pickup times are. If you post your letter in time for one of the earlier pickup times, it should start going through the system sooner and could arrive at its destination sooner. If you miss the pickup time, you can be sure it will get there later.

But it depends on where it's going. The mail gets sorted throughout the day depending on destination. Getting your mail in half an hour earlier will probably not get it to its destination any sooner, unless it happens to beat a cut off time for pickups.

Once the mail is bar coded, it is automatically sorted into destination postal stations. Items for local delivery are retained in the postal station while other items are trucked to either the appropriate station if it is within approximately 200 miles, or the airport for transport to more distant destinations. Mail is flown, usually as baggage on commercial airlines, to the airport nearest the destination station, then at a nearby processing center the mail is once again read by a Delivery Bar Code System which sorts the items into their local destinations, including grouping them by individual mail carrier.