{"id":3397,"date":"2008-08-07T11:52:24","date_gmt":"2008-08-07T15:52:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/2008\/08\/07\/public-toilets\/"},"modified":"2008-08-07T11:52:24","modified_gmt":"2008-08-07T15:52:24","slug":"public-toilets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/08\/07\/public-toilets\/","title":{"rendered":"Public Toilets"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Paris<\/p>\n

I was very grateful to find this automated toilet when I was wandering around Paris in June. As they say, when you got to go …<\/p>\n

Public toilets are important, for lots of reasons<\/a>. They make it possible to walk around a city extensively, as I was doing that day in Paris, without being tied to home base or having to stop and buy something in a cafe. Toronto is currently desperately lacking<\/a> in restroom facilities you can use without buying something.<\/p>\n

So it’s good news that Toronto is slated to get some automated public toilets like the one above with the new street furniture program — but only 20, which hardly seems like a lot. And they will cost $1 to use, apparently.<\/p>\n

There were a lot more of these automated toilets in Paris. I was struck by how small they are — I had thought they were pretty bulky, but in fact they fit quite snugly on the sidewalk. Using them wasn’t exactly a pleasure, but they did the trick, and they’re clean.<\/p>\n

And, in what I think is a big change from what I remember last time I was in Paris years ago, they are now all FREE. I would have been willing to pay at that point, but as it turns out I didn’t have to. That’s a pretty serious commitment to pedestrian convenience on the part of the City of Paris. I’m not sure if Toronto’s will have ads on them, but if they do, it seems they ought to be free too, paid for out of ad revenues. I don’t know if part of the logic for demanding payment is to discourage non-toilet uses, but it doesn’t seem necessary in Paris, and I doubt it would make a difference. The doors open automatically after 15 minutes, in any case.<\/p>\n

The automated toilets are just one part of the solution, of course. Keeping open and maintaining more public washrooms in parks, better maintenance of TTC washrooms, and enforcing the Ontario Building Code provision requiring washrooms in large stores (Councillor Howard Moscoe is apparently keen on this idea) would all help too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was very grateful to find this automated toilet when I was wandering around Paris in June. As they say, when you got to go … Public toilets are important, for lots of reasons. 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