Thursday, July 17, 2008
NY Times: Public Toilets
The New York Times ran a piece today that reminded me of the idea that was floated a couple of years ago to install a public toilet on H Street. The article talks about the varying experiences in different cities. I think the main concern on H was always maintenance, followed by safety. A couple of weeks ago I was walking east on the south side of the 1300 block of H. We watched a man park his car, get out, and start peeing on a church. It was a nice car. He was a decently dressed middle aged black guy. Why he decided it would be okay to pee on the church I can't fathom. Would a public restroom prevent something like this, I doubt it. He could have ducked into SOVA, or the Popeye's to use the restroom. But I will say that a while back when Pepco was doing a lot of street work and left its porta-potties unlocked, I did see random people, either walking or driving down the street, stop to use the bathrooms.
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10 comments:
Seattle just voted to dump their public toilets.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008051785_toilets15m.html
If you think that public restrooms would stop an apparently affluent black man from peeing on a church you will be sorely disappointed. Anyone with such blatant disregard for religion and public decency would not be bothered to enter into what will likely be a smelly disgusting stall.
i think that guy was just a degenerate.
h street public toilets = terrible idea.
We can't even get the District to empty trashcans on H Street in a timely fashion...who's going to maintain the public toilets?
Now Russell (10:18), you know you should have left one of those adjectives out describing the man you saw peeing on the church. That's just going to create this whole stink on here regarding relative discriptions of those who disregard the law and respect for property!
As an affluent man, I find your discription of this man as "affluent" highly offensive . It also insinuates that this is something all affluents do and added no relevance to your post.
I love the French system of paying a couple of Euros for the privilege of using a clean bathroom that is maintained full time by staff.
can we not turn this into yet another free for all of black people, this blog is already becoming unreadable because of the persistent race baiting.
The point I think the anecdote conveys is that some people find it perfectly acceptable to pee in alleys or other public areas. Just like people who callously throw their trash on the sidewalk despite a wastebasket literally being an arms length away, there are people who will pee on the side of a building instead of using an available port o potty or ducking into a restaurant.
i say no to the idea of a public toilet. i just don't have any confidence it would be maintained properly by the city or used by the people who currently do their business in the street.
I love the self-cleaning toilets they have in San Francisco. I think they were about a quarter and took a minute to clean themselves between uses. I think these would be great, though I'm sure they're quite expensive.
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_2vRHjMPwTNo/RydoJ7skc1I/AAAAAAAADdA/30ziZ12PrUU/SanFranOct07.+350.jpg
Rick on L Street
The public stall toilets in Paris now are completely free. It "self-clean" after each use, operates from 6am to 10pm, and opens its door after 15 minutes of use (to prevent people sleeping (staying too long) in it.
I used one of the self-cleaning models in Galway. Compared to the nightmare that is the toilet at MLK Library, it's worth the money.
Metro had a pilot program to install these in subway entrances, but the company that made them didn't make them compliant with the ADA (something about wheelchair inaccessibility). Then 9/11 happened, and suddenly self-cleaning toilets became a primary target for al Quaida, along with garbage cans.
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