Finding a public bathroom in New York City can be a big challenge. Why is finding a basic necessity so difficult in New York City? You manage to find that t-shirt you’ve been looking for, you successfully navigate the subway system without getting lost, but finding a (clean) restroom while you’re exploring the city can be a difficult task.
The NYPD issues between 20,000 and 30,000 citations for public urination each year. It’s not clear who really is at fault—the person who is relieving him or herself, or the city. Public urination is a response to a significant infrastructure in New York. It is one of the hardest urban problems to fight. Over the years there were several activist organizations. Safe2Pee, is one of an activist organization who says “It’s a fundamental human right”. PHLUSH, is an other group fighting upstream, like a salmon trapped in a river of urine, to get public restrooms installed in cities.
Yet it’s proved incredibly difficult to construct sidewalk public bathrooms. In New York, the density of people on sidewalks is much too high to stick a public restroom every four blocks. Restrooms are expensive. A similar restroom like the Portland Loo costs about $60,000 each to construct, and another $1,200 a month to maintain. To install a few thousand of these around New York could veer into the tens of millions of dollars just to install.
In brief the solution: Either buy yourself some diapers when you like to explore the streets of New York or use the link below. -Bregje-
my SITE of the story 