A Strategy for 'Potty Parity'

Selfridges was the first ever store in Britain to provide a women’s lavatory.  What a boon these conveniences must have been to women who previously were forced to (discreetly) relieve themselves in the open.  Given the relative abundance of public toilets for women today, it might be difficult to believe that in the 1900s women had to urinate publicly, but they did indeed: the inner linings of Victorian dresses often were stained by urine, suggesting that women used these garments to “cloak the practice of urinating while standing outside in public” (Cavanagh, 2010, p.38).  The ability to access a public convenience must have given women—at least those who could afford to pass through the doors of Selfridges—a considerable sense of liberation and respect: at last someone acknowledged their need for bodily relief (even if the intent likely had a mercenary motive).  But, the social subordination of women in the early 1900s—interpreted here as the absence of public toilets for women—is not an anachronistic relic of a traditional society.  No, even in today’s ‘modern’ society, where it would be inconceivable that public toilets for women are nonexistent, gender parity in the public restroom is missing; women often need to stand in an everlasting line and ‘hold it’ while their male counterparts readily breeze in and out of the loo.  But, what, exactly, constitutes gender parity in the restroom?  More precisely, what are the metrics of ‘potty parity’?  Certainly not an equal amount of toilet stalls for men and women (for numerous reasons women have a greater need than men for public toilets).  This model is outmoded and clearly does not work.  And, critically, if a metric for measuring ‘potty parity’ did exist, (how) would it be implemented?  I think that, like other elements of public toilet provision, a metric for potty parity would develop organically out of a dedicated and deliberate public toilet provision strategy.  I believe that the development of a public toilet strategy that incorporates feedback from collaborative planning exercises is critical to the establishment of an effective and sustainable public toilet program.  And I believe that by considering variables such as age, disability, gender, public health, and homelessness, as well as elements such as location, design, and cost, planners, architects, and urban designers would uncover a metric (or metrics) for measuring gender parity in the public restroom.  Indeed, by ensuring the provision of accessible, clean, and sufficient public toilets, the creation of a public toilet strategy would go a long way towards enabling all people to participate in urban life, and thus towards creating a healthier, more liveable, and more equitable city. 

Cavanagh, S.L. (2010). Queering bathrooms: Gender, sexuality, and the hygienic imagination. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Change Your Attitude

One of the most common reasons/excuses cities give for why they don’t install (more) public toilets is that they’re expensive, often prohibitively so.  Yes, public toilets can be expensive (purchase price ranges from the high five figures to the low six figures, depending on the supplier and the level of sophistication of the toilet unit, plus the cost of infrastructure hookup), but I believe cost is the least important reason why cities don’t provide more public toilets.  While the financial cost of providing a public toilet is not insignificant, it doesn’t have to break the bank, either.  In some cases (New York City and Toronto), cities don’t pay a cent for public toilet provision because their toilets are included as part of a deal with advertising companies whereby the companies provide a variety of street furniture (public toilets included) in return for the right to advertise on the furniture (in Toronto, this arrangement, which was supposed to net the city 20 public toilets, yielded two public toilets.  Plans for further public toilets recently were scrapped).  Let’s face it, cities don’t provide public toilets because they’re not seen as important amenities—their worth is not recognized.  Public toilets are seen as psychologically, philosophically, and politically undesirable because of the potential trouble they will bring.  Cost is just a canard, an expedient myth.  The ironic thing is that the more a city spends on public toilet provision, by selecting ultra-sophisticated fortresses of steel in order to ‘design out’ bad behaviour, the more problems the toilets cause and the more expensive they become.  Trying to control human behaviour with technology and design is an expensive and, ultimately, futile endeavour (just ask Seattle).  Cities need to accept that public toilets are going to be used hard, and they need to figure out a way to work with this reality rather than trying to squelch it.  First, it’s impossible—you can’t monitor and control humanity’s every move in a public toilet and people always will outsmart technology and ‘environmental’ design.  Second, trying to monitor and control humanity’s every move in a public toilet is what ends up costing a small fortune.  Cities need to get over their public toilet phobia.  As corny as it sounds, public toilets don’t need to be feared, they need to be accepted.  Once they’re accepted in all their complex glory, then a strategy can be formulated for how to provide them, how to maintain and service them, and how to keep them in operation.  I’m not saying that design isn’t an important feature of a public toilet.  In fact, I would say it’s one of the most important features.  The key idea is that public toilets need to be designed in order to be as accommodating as possible, rather than designed to be as punitive or restrictive as possible.  This about-face in mindset will go a long way in slaying the fears and suspicions that plague public toilet provision. 

  

Close Call

I love to walk.  I can walk for hours on end—half searching for quirky architectural gems, half to clear my mind.  Walking brings me peace.  Until I need to pee.  I usually find the nearest McDonalds or Starbucks and slink in and scramble out as swiftly as possible.  But one time, while I was abroad in London for my Master’s degree, I could find no McDonalds, no Starbucks, and nowhere else to go either.  I kept walking and walking, growing ever more desperate.  And then I found a community college.  I figured—perfect!  They’ll have a washroom I can use.  They did indeed have a washroom, but it was for students only—students of that community college, not students of other educational institutions (of this the security guard was quite clear).  So, I begged.  I begged and begged and promised that I would run in and out as quickly as possible and not make a mess and not do anything in there that I shouldn’t and please let me use the washroom because my bladder is about to burst and I can’t keep it in.  I almost was in tears.  The security guard finally and thankfully took pity on me and let me through the gate, telling me to hurry up because he really wasn’t supposed to let me in.  I sped in and out, thanking him profusely, but that was a terrible experience.  You know, people who smell alright and look alright and don’t have a cartful of belongings and don’t mutter to themselves generally do have a trouble-free time finding an “away from home” toilet to use when they need one.  I never had an experience like this before.  I’ve even been able to walk into a hotel and use its washroom.  It’s relatively easy for housed people to take it for granted that they will find a public toilet to use when they need one.  And it’s easy for housed people not to appreciate that finding a public toilet to use often is impossible for homeless people, and can lead them to urinate and defecate in alleys and other quasi-public spaces.  Indeed, undesirable behaviours associated with homeless people, including vandalism, drug use, and sexual activity, repeatedly have been named as leading reasons for the closure of existing public toilets and the reluctance of cities to provide additional public toilets.  But if housed people can walk into public institutions, malls, food service establishments, and even hospitality establishments to use the restrooms, then why should cities provide public toilets?  Should cities provide public toilets primarily for the use of homeless people?  Cities need to provide public toilets beyond what can be found in malls and cafés and restaurants and hotels, and provide them for all people, not just for homeless people, because going when you need to go should be a civil right.  Yet, as the public toilet situation in North American cities stands now, not everyone can go when she or he needs to go.  People with physical disabilities and mobility impairments, parents and attendants of children with disabilities and mobility impairments, people who travel with a companion for assistance, people with certain medical conditions, elderly people, moms or dads with babies and young children, people with complexity or ambiguity in gender presentation, homeless people, and everyone else should be able to go to the bathroom when they need to go.  And it is morally incumbent on cities to ensure that their citizens have this right.  Perhaps homeless people understand best the indignity that could come from not being able to access a toilet when needed.  Yes, public toilets can be dirty, disgusting places and no, they’re not always used only for peeing and pooping (whether or not they should be is a whole other matter).  But if they get to be dirty and disgusting then it’s because of the way they’re viewed, not because of who uses them or how they’re used/what they’re used for.  If public toilets are looked at as expensive nuisances used by offensive people for improper purposes and the people who are hired to clean and maintain public toilets are underpaid, inadequately trained, and undervalued, then, yes, even the newest and most modern public toilet, no matter how technologically complex and expensive, quickly will become dirty and disgusting and most people will not use it.  So, should cities hire attendants to monitor public toilets?  Should there be video surveillance outside public toilets?  There are so many questions to ask regarding public toilet provision.  Questions about design and about location, about cost and about security.  And I want to address them all.  But, regardless of all the questions, cities still need public toilets.  So, where do we start?  How about with two apt quotes from my favourite television show (not to minimize the issue):

Sheldon: I do not have to urinate.  I am the master of my own bladder . . . . Drat!

The Big Bang Theory, Season 3, Episode 13

Sheldon: I have to skip the chit chat.  Emergency.

Leonard: What kind of emergency?

Sheldon: Mathematical.  32-ounce banana smoothie, 16-ounce bladder. 

The Big Bang Theory, Season 4, Episode 21

 

Censure

Until Archie Bunker flushed the toilet, the sound of a toilet flushing never had been heard before on television.  Until that instant, the flush had been a private sound—no one’s business but the flusher’s.  Now a taboo had been broken (not the first for “All in the Family”): people pooped.  A taboo had been broken, but so not disgust for the bathroom.  Human needs and human behaviour intersect in the public restroom and these often are vibrantly displayed and vehemently rejected: strong smells, fugitive sounds, spots of blood, loose hair, and used condoms—the public restroom often is a contemptible thing, but also so desperately needed.  Perhaps it’s this slipperiness, this struggle over what should be so simple yet is so sticky that provokes eruptions of public censure when a city considers installing public toilets.  This condemnation is in part responsible for the lack of public toilets in North American cities: what politician wants to incur the wrath of her/his electorate over something as picayune as a toilet?


In my next blog post, I will consider the (historical) conflict between practical and social justifications for public toilet provision and restriction.  Or perhaps I will explore a related matter.  In the meantime, I offer you another apt quote from my favourite television show:

Sheldon:  Howard, I have to go to the bathroom and no one will take me home.
Howard:  What’s wrong with the bathroom here?
Sheldon:  Pneumococcus, streptococcus, staphylococcus, and other sorts of coccusses.
Howard:  Sheldon, my mother is on her deathbed and my fiancée is grief-stricken over putting her there.  I’m NOT taking you home!
Sheldon: Will you at least go with me to the restroom here so you can open the door and flush the urinal?
Howard: NO!
Sheldon: This might be a good time to point out, Howard, that friendship requires a certain give and take.

                                                                                    The Big Bang Theory, Season 4, Episode 23