Why Portland's Public Toilets Succeeded Where Others Failed (2012)

[laser]

$90k upfront plus $12k /year? Perhaps these public restrooms are better than the alternative, but it seems to me that Germany has successfully solved this issue for far less cost by partnering with local businesses [1]. For just the cost of one of these toilet's maintenance you could have dozens of businesses open up their restrooms to the public.

[1] https://www.fastcompany.com/3065278/german-cities-are-solvin...

[Simulacra]

The few times that I went to a restroom at a German business, particularly restaurants, there was usually an attendant that took care of the restroom and you had to leave a tip. I could never see American businesses willingly opening their restrooms to the homeless, let alone having a full-time attendant to watch over them.

[jorblumesea]

Have you been to Portland? Local restaurants don't want to deal with the street folks there.

[User23]

Germany has the significant advantage of being mostly populated by Germans, who are notorious for their adherence to rules.

[crispyambulance]

There are other solutions besides crazy expensive vandal-proof high-tech toilets. Just look at what they do in Europe.

* Large Public restrooms in busy city centers and transit hubs where you have attendants constantly cleaning the place and charge people to use the facilities.

* Outdoor public urinals that are little more than a drain and a shield. This is an 80% solution that solves the problem of stinking alleys. Much of the time men just need a place to leak during a night of drinking. Women are way better about finding and getting permission to use private restrooms at shops/restaurants.

[m-s]

Did you read the article? The Portland Loo is neither crazy expensive nor high-tech. It's a more inclusive and accessible version of the "public urinal that's little more than a drain and a shield."

[astura]

These aren't "crazy expensive vandal-proof high-tech toilets" (which TFA says failed in Seattle); It's an example of "hostile architecture."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostile_architecture

Outdoor urinals are controversial. https://ktla.com/2018/08/14/open-air-public-urinals-cause-co...

Of course, the problem with pay toilets is you have to actually have change on you.

[narrator]

So how do you solve the heroin junky passing out/projectile vomiting/falling asleep/dying/leaving needles around/defecating everywhere but the toilet with the door locked problem?

On the streets of San Francisco I have seen several passed out heroin junkies lying flat on their back right there on the sidewalk, needles nearby, perhaps passed out or worse with some sort of projectile body effluent leaking out of them or trailing behind them. This is probably an average day at Starbucks for a non-discriminatory bathroom in a high addict area.

[jdietrich]

> So how do you solve the heroin junky passing out/projectile vomiting/falling asleep/dying/leaving needles around/defecating everywhere but the toilet with the door locked problem?

Universal healthcare, harm reduction and rehab services, comprehensive welfare, affordable housing and a sufficient number of properly trained and resourced social workers.

[willvarfar]

In big european cities many fast food places have weird blue lighting in the toilets; apparently it makes it hard for junkies to find their veins or something.

[inferiorhuman]

Wet houses are something that's been proposed in San Francisco. IMO they would be a good start.

[ndnxhs]

This is a San Francisco problem. In most of the world such a sight would be very rare.

[notthemessiah]

San Francisco half-asses the social services, they just give out clean needles without considering how to dispose of them. Successful cities provide safe injection sites and supplement them with harm reduction strategies.

[samcheng]

The streets of Portland aren't quite as bad as those of San Francisco, but there are plenty of heroin addicts in the Northwest. This particular article doesn't seem to state it directly, but those poor souls are exactly what this public toilet was designed to be resilient to.

https://portlandloo.com/faq/

[ascar]

The only time I've seen something similar to what you describe was on my trip in New York. And I've been to about 20 countries across 4 continents.

It's an American homegrown problem with too much focus on capitalism.

edit: You can downvote this, but it doesn't make it untrue nor irrelevant to the point. If you have basically no people living on the streets, you also avoid this problem. I'm still shocked from seeing homeless (nearly) die in the cold in New York.

With a better social systems it's maybe not fully solvable, but reducible to a point where it's no longer an apparent problem in every day live. It does work, many countries in the world do it, also in major cities.

[ajuc]

1. decriminalization of drugs use

2. public healthcare

3. state-funded homeless shelters

And then not only you don't have a problem with all these undesirables messing up your public toilets - you also don't have a significant part of your society wasting their lives.

Oh but that would literally be communism, right. Carry on, then.

[Simulacra]

I think this is an absolutely amazing idea. I was astonished in Europe how many public toilets there were, and yet when I came back to the states there were none. I think these would be amazing right here in Washington DC because we have a large homeless population, that have nowhere to go. This would also cut down on the whole Starbucks bathroom fiasco situation, and might ease tension between businesses and the homeless.

[irrational]

What was the Starbucks bathroom fiasco?

[jdietrich]

See also the Camden Bench, a bench that was painstakingly designed to have literally no other function than being a bench.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camden_bench

[mysterypie]

There's a lesson in Public Relations here.

The designers were criticized for their anti-homeless, hostile architecture. If I were the designer, I was thinking to myself as to how I'd respond. My initial thoughts on what I could say:

1. "I was given a set of requirements and this is what meets the requirements."

2. "No comment. Please address your complaints to the city council who commissioned the benches."

3. "You don't want to sit on a urine-soaked bench, do you?"

4. "I'm sorry but I can't solve the homelessness problem."

They all sound defensive. What the designers actually said is excellent. It could be a lesson in Public Relations:

The designers said that: "Homelessness should never be tolerated in any society and if we start designing in to accommodate homeless then we have totally failed as a society. Close proximity to homelessness unfortunately makes us uncomfortable so perhaps it is good that we feel that and recognise homelessness as a problem rather than design to accommodate it."

[LyndsySimon]

Those actually look significantly better to me than the ones I regularly see in the US, with several "armrests" placed on a traditional bench in an attempt to prevent someone from using it as a place to sleep.

[Fezzik]

I have been out of Portland for 7 months, but are all of these still running? I recall one being installed on the SW riverfront that was almost immediately shuttered, I thought, due to successful vandalism/an inability to keep it functional. It just sat there unusable for ages - I ran by it nearly every day and evening for 5+ years (2013-2018) at was roped off the entire time.

[sircastor]

That's odd. I'm certain I've used the one you're referring to in the last few years.

[AltmousGadfly]

It's funny that one of the problems listed is the homeless washing themselves and their clothes in public bathroom sinks. It seems to me that public washrooms and laundry facilities would be a good thing. I seldom have someone sit next to me on the bus and think: "I wish they hadn't washed today."

[joveian]

Portland does have some day centers with laundry and showers, however the usage is way above capacity.

[kbouck]

In the Netherlands, many of the toilets are pay (€0.50) and regularly cleaned by a full-time attendant. They are generally quite clean, even at train stations.

There are also male urinals which literally rise up out of the ground during weekends and festivals.

https://youtu.be/qXjPxBPgGV0

I think female versions of these exist too, but haven't seen.

[sambeau]

  • No running water inside: "Some people, if they’re homeless,
  use a sink to wash their laundry," says DiBenedetto. 
  So there’s no sink

I find that a very strange feature. What is wrong with homeless people washing clothes in a public sink?

[kaybe]

The issue are probably blocking the toilet and making a mess. I wonder though, should there then not be public sinks for this kind of thing somewhere else?

[GrryDucape]

NYC needs these--plus, it would be a great test. Public restrooms or even stores/restaurants that will allow you to use their restrooms are rare indeed. Would be a great test of the design too. If your toilet can make it there, it can make it anywhere!

[johnmarcus]

Can someone please sell these to San Francisco? PLEASE?!?!?

[Animats]

That may happen. San Francisco made a 20 year deal with JCDecaux for the existing public toilets. The 20 years are up and the Board of Supervisors is not going to renew.[1]

It's sad. A similar model works fine in Paris. It's way too complicated and expensive, though. I've looked over the mechanism when one was being repaired. It's all Telemechanique industrial control and automation gear. It needs to be more like a washing machine.

[1] https://missionlocal.org/2019/02/jcdecaux-toilet-contract-ma...

[siruncledrew]

No pictures of the inside?

[jakobegger]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland_Loo#/media/File%3AP...

[kwhitefoot]

> The toilet has the dubious honor of being the city of Portland’s first patent.

Why 'dubious'?

This attitude is part the problem that public conveniences suffer under.

Surely it is glorious that Portland's first patent should be something so patently useful to the people.

[sverhagen]

> Why 'dubious'?

Because patents are often criticized, both specific ones as the whole concept of patents?

[boon]

I am legitimately curious how a government entity can get a patent. Shouldn't anything funded with tax dollars automatically get put into the public domain?

[senectus1]

no water inside... so no one is washing their hands?

When your child has a poo explosion you cant do a damned thing to clean up properly.

I wonder what the gastro bug pickup rate is like in portland...

[glangdale]

If your child has a poo explosion, you can look pitiful and generally you'll get ushered through to use a toilet in a store (source: experience).

This would be pretty inconvenient, but to really deal with that situation requires wet wipes and a changing table. This is aimed at a different population who might otherwise just shit in the streets.

[ctrl-j]

I mean, yeah - that sucks. But it's not what the thing is designed for. I watched a man stand slightly behind a construction sign on a downtown Seattle sidewalk and relieve himself in full view of a half dozen people yesterday. I believe that is the problem these toilets are aiming to solve.

A parent with poopocalypse on their hands, probably can find a store that sells wetwipes and most likely has a change-table equipped restroom.

[frosted-flakes]

The very next sentence says there's a cold water spigot outside, which is a totally fine solution.

[mrep]

I think it is mainly meant for homeless people so they don't just defecate in the street nonstop. I live in Seattle where there is a huge homeless problem and most businesses have codes on the bathrooms to only provide customers the option to use them.

[Kalium]

That sounds terrible! I can only imagine how inconvenient and messy it is to deal with.

With that said, there might be a minor distinction to be drawn between a solution that solves every use-case including yours and a solution that solves the most common use case of greatest policy concern. It is, of course, very possible and in fact very likely that I'm incredibly mistaken! In which case I welcome enlightenment.

[simonsays2]

Haha. Illegal activity is now carried out right in the street. Portland is not a success, it is a cautionary tail.

[QuamStiver]

I think it's a matter of discipline. Well it's a nice topic you have. I think public toilets is not for bathing its for emergency reason. The outdoor toilets pittsburgh is successful too and it's very clean.