I received my renewal passport today. The entire timeline:

May 5th: mailed application to the Philadelphia routine processing mailbox via Priority Mail, electronic signature receipt

May 8th. Application received in Philadelphia and signed for.

June 16th. Application shows up in system as received 6/16 and "In Process". 5 1/2 weeks in mailroom/lockbox limbo.

July 26th. Application shows "Approved". Just over 5 1/2 weeks in "In Process" status.

July 27th. Passport shipped

July 28th. Passport received (I did pay the extra $17 for overnight).

Total elapsed time from mailing application to new passport in hand, 12 weeks on the nose.

This was routine processing, I have no travel planned until late Fall and that is to Canada which I could use my valid, unexpired NEXUS card for instead of a passport if it came to that. I mostly renewed it when I did because I've always held a valid passport since 1986 and mine was expiring in October.

They appear to be speeding up. My actual processing time was 5 1/2 weeks once it showed as "received", far less than the 12 weeks warned about on the website (18 weeks including "mailing" time).

I do have an issue with the disingenuous "mailing" time, since most of that time is not in the hands of USPS, but rather in their mailroom. I did some internet research and found that it is actually pre-processing (OCR scanning, etc) outsourced to Citibank. Why they are putting the blame for the inordinate "mailing" time on USPS instead of the actual culprit, their contractor, Citibank, is a matter of speculation.

In any case, good luck to those of you in a time crunch. The relatively short time, 5 1/2 weeks, spent "In Process" for this routine renewal should be good news.

For those of you keeping track, while my application was sent to Philly, my passport was issued by the New Orleans office.