{"id":61789,"date":"2020-05-13T12:00:11","date_gmt":"2020-05-13T16:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?p=61789"},"modified":"2020-05-31T15:37:50","modified_gmt":"2020-05-31T19:37:50","slug":"in-lieu-of-a-loo-going-out-and-going-during-a-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2020\/05\/13\/in-lieu-of-a-loo-going-out-and-going-during-a-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"IN LIEU OF A LOO: Going out and ‘going’ during a pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"

The weather is warming. The sun is shining. COVID-19 cases are on the downturn. And stores and cafes are blinking back to life after the Ford government announced that Ontario retail outlets with street entrances can open for delivery and curb-side pickup.<\/p>\n

Sure, there\u2019s a tentativeness to all this. Government officials are looking at every flex of COVID-19, making sure these first stabs at re-opening the economy don\u2019t erase the public health achievements of our recent social sacrifice.<\/p>\n

For my money? It\u2019s bound to be an abject disaster.<\/p>\n

Not because people don\u2019t know how to stay two metres apart from one another, but because municipal governments are about to feel the acute impact of not having enough on-street public toilets to keep cities flowing.<\/p>\n

The economy needs to get moving. And for that to happen, people have to move, too. In the earliest iteration of easing self-isolation, that will mean opening stores \u2014\u00a0curb-side flower sales; curb-side sneaker pickups; curb-side socks and greeting cards and magazines; pet supply stores selling curb-side dog poop bags.<\/p>\n

But note the specific kind of retail establishment to which the Ford government has given the almost-all-clear:\u00a0those with street entrances. That means mostly small shops. That means definitely street-facing. And that means swarms more people milling around on city sidewalks.<\/p>\n

Many of us have been holed up for two months. We need to put on our shorts, order a take-out ice cream cone, and sidle up to a shoe store for new flip-flops.<\/p>\n

The good? In these much-needed excursions, people will boost their mental health as well as their local economies.<\/p>\n

The bad? They will also find that the bathrooms they\u2019ve relied on are not there for them \u2014 libraries, coffee shops, and department stores.<\/p>\n

The ugly? Governments are entirely unlikely to see this coming and, so, immune to preventing the looming shit-show.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s why: publicly accessible<\/em> provision is our bathroom bread and butter in Canada. We are not a country with a culture of public<\/em> bathrooms \u2014 stand-alone on-street toilets open to all. It\u2019s just not who we are. We have always been a culture that relies on commercial toilets open to customers. You know: Starbucks, McDonalds, etc. Successive municipal governments in many cities have, as a matter of policy, passed the infrastructure buck to private businesses. So Canadian urbanites have come to expect\u00a0bathrooms geared toward helping spenders spend, rather than bathrooms designed to help city users use cities.<\/p>\n

Public health and government officials can, and presumably should, mandate continued social distancing, even as they entreat us to launch off the sofa and get take-home tacos for dinner this Friday. But they can\u2019t ask us to leave our bladders at home.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s always been the case that citizens\u2019 and tourists\u2019 ability to spend money in downtown cores has been hampered by the \u2018bladder\u2019s leash.\u2019<\/p>\n

Each of us can only travel so far, spend so much time \u2014\u00a0and dish out so much cash in the process \u2014\u00a0without access to a public bathroom. As a society, we\u2019ve learned to make do: buying muffins we don\u2019t want in order to use customer-only cafe bathrooms; knowing about toilets tucked into neighbourhood recreation centres; and slipping in to fancy department stores or posh downtown hotel to use the loos.<\/p>\n

This make-do modus operandi<\/em> is so engrained in our psyche that we don\u2019t even think about it. To wit: for years, I have automatically had a just-in-case pee when I\u2019m about to go on a long dog walk at the park. I don\u2019t think about it. I don\u2019t lament it. I just know I\u2019m going to have to go, and that the basic infrastructure isn\u2019t going to be there for me. Or, say I\u2019m heading downtown to do some random shopping. I\u2019ll always have a preemptive pee when I see a coffee shop, mid-trip. I may not need to go in that moment. But I know it might be the only chance for a while.<\/p>\n

That was then. Right now, the situation is promising to be much, much worse.<\/p>\n

As far as I\u2019ve heard, there\u2019s been no mention of dealing with the dearth of public bathroom provision with in-store shopping suspended, and no plan to support the leagues of prowling patrons newly sprung from their homes. People will be out. And they will be caught short. It\u2019s inevitable. We\u2019re entering a new COVID-19 moment, and for this moment, we are completely unprepared.<\/p>\n

There is hope. It\u2019s possible government can set aside its usual approach of turning a blind eye to this basic and enduring infrastructural need and recognize the dearth of washrooms as an imminent calamity. After all, Toronto added a slew of specially-sited toilet and hand-washing stations for people experiencing homelessness during COVID-19. The rationale: those sleeping rough have less ability to distance and fewer opportunities for routine hand-hygiene. That provision was put in place relatively quickly. The same can happen for the deluge of shoppers who will increasingly flood commercial streets in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n

If local governments respond well, and can nimbly pivot, there\u2019s a chance that cities \u2014 and pedestrians \u2014 may come out of this pandemic better provided for than we went in.<\/p>\n

photo by City of Toronto Archives<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Lezlie Lowe is a freelance print and broadcast journalist in Halifax and the author of <\/em>No Place To Go: How Public Toilets Fail Our Private Needs<\/a><\/em> (Coach House, 2018). You can find her reading the story before tweeting @lezlielowe<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The weather is warming. The sun is shining. COVID-19 cases are on the downturn. And stores and cafes are blinking back to life after the Ford government announced that Ontario retail outlets with street entrances can open for delivery and curb-side pickup. Sure, there\u2019s a tentativeness to all this. Government officials are looking at everyContinue reading “IN LIEU OF A LOO: Going out and ‘going’ during a pandemic”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8449,"featured_media":48992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22369,32,20,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pandemic","category-streetscape","category-urban-design","category-walking"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIN LIEU OF A LOO: Going out and 'going' during a pandemic - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2020\/05\/13\/in-lieu-of-a-loo-going-out-and-going-during-a-pandemic\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"IN LIEU OF A LOO: Going out and 'going' during a pandemic - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The weather is warming. 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