OH, THE PLACES YOU’LL GO!
For the first time in nearly half a century, public toilets — these ones self-cleaning — are set to return to downtown Montreal. There is relief, but also trepidation. René Bruemmer plunges into the complex challenge of installing public loos in a dense u
Considering they serve a fairly basic function, installing public toilets in a dense urban setting is a complex challenge many major North American cities have managed to fail.
Seattle spent $5 million on five high-tech, self-cleaning toilets in 2003. Stymied by filth, drug use and prostitution, the city threw in the towel five years later and sold them on eBay for $2,500 each.
New York City went through three municipal administrations and 18 years of promises and failed to implement them. Finally, billionaire mayor and philanthropist Michael R. Bloomberg deemed them an essential human right and made public toilets the third priority of his electoral campaign after education and the city budget.
Bloomberg signed a deal in 2005 with a Spanish company to install 20 automated toilets, for free, in exchange for the right to post advertisements. A decade later, only five are open and 15 of them are sitting in a warehouse in Queens.
Toronto, too, signed a contract to install 20 German-made public toilets in 2007. The cost of each was $450,000, the expense to be covered by Astral Media as part of an advertising agreement. Six years later, only three have been installed. The first two had to be shut temporarily over two successive winters because their water lines froze.
It is with a mix of civic pride and some trepidation, then, that Montreal’s Ville-Marie borough approved a contract in April to install 12 self-cleaning public toilets downtown and in Old Montreal.
It will be the first time in nearly half a century that public toilets return to the downtown core, much to the relief of tourists, shop owners and homeless-rights advocates who have been requesting them for years.
But at roughly $300,000 each, they cost more than the average price of a condominium on the island of Montreal. Which comes with a washroom.
And before the contract was even signed, Montreal’s attempts were mired in controversy.
A previous initiative by VilleMarie in 2014 was quashed because the sole bidder didn’t meet city standards.
For the current $3.6-million, three-year contract, only one company submitted a bid. In February, opposition party Projet Montréal called for it to be rejected because Atmosphäre, the Mirabel-based urban furniture supply company that won the bid, shares the same address, phone number and three administrators with Imagineo Inc. That firm’s former director of operations was fined $210,000 and received a nine-month suspended prison sentence in 2014 and 2015 for helping his company obtain tax refunds for invented expenses.
He was also reported to have admitted to submitting fake tax bills and offering bribes to win public contracts. The city countered it has verified Atmosphäre’s bid and all is in order.
Since then, municipal authorities and involved parties have been markedly hesitant to discuss the issue.
The Montreal Gazette asked to interview Atmosphäre about the challenges involved in installing public toilets in an urban centre, but company director Pierre Moulin denied the request and suggested a reporter speak to the civil servant in charge of the dossier.
Requests with the Ville-Marie borough to speak to the civil servant were denied as well. A city spokesperson responded to questions via email.
Requests to speak to an elected official with the city about the project were also denied.
The installation of the first public toilet, which was to be ready by August, is already behind schedule. The latest forecast is for “the fall.”
The choice of where to place the toilets is still “under analysis,” the city said.
Images of what they will look like are not available, the city said.
Atmosphäre’s marketing director also declined requests for photos, because “we don’t have a showroom at our Mirabel plant that would allow you to take nice photos to go with your article.”
Long a staple in European cities like Paris, which has 400 selfcleaning “sanisettes,” public toilets are relatively scarce in North America, primarily for reasons of cost and upkeep. But the need is still compelling.
For the elderly or people with medical conditions like irritable bowel syndrome or diabetes or Crohn’s disease, easy access to a public restroom without the cost or embarrassment of having to ask to use restaurant facilities is a major factor influencing whether or not they will leave their home.
In Montreal, shopkeepers and merchants have been calling for them to entice tourists and shoppers, and to help keep the neighbourhood clean, while social workers raise the question of basic human dignity for the homeless population.
“The city of Montreal, like other large cities, wants to offer its citizens as well as its many visitors facilities that are clean, accessible and safe,” Ville-Marie spokesperson Anik de Repentigny said in an email.
Maintaining clean, safe facilities is not an easy task, however. Urban public toilets located in a climate zone like Montreal’s — that ranges between freezing and sweltering — must be heated and air-conditioned.
They must also be connected to the city’s water, sewage and electrical systems, and be sturdy enough to resist vandalism.
Even high-end, self-cleaning loos can fall victim to grime and crime. Montreal intends to install models that resemble Seattle’s pricey automatic toilets, which included a self-cleaning system to disinfect the toilets and floors after every use. But those still became refuges for drug addicts and illicit sex. And they got filthy.
“I’m not going to lie: I used to smoke crack in there,” a homeless woman told the New York Times, referring to the public toilet behind Pike Place Market on the eve of its removal in 2008. “But I won’t even go inside that thing now. It’s disgusting.”
Such was the mess that Seattle had to pay an extra $540,000 fee to end its maintenance contract five years early with the company, Northwest Cascade, a local firm with no prior experience in providing public restrooms.
“Free restrooms in gas stations and coffee shops are going extinct because people are worse than animals,” wrote one commenter on the Montreal City weblog. Two of his clients run more than 7,000 gas stations and convenience stores in the U.S., he said, and half of those properties don’t offer public restrooms anymore because “employees often quit on the spot rather than deal with whatever fresh nightmare has been discovered in the bathroom.”
SUCCESS IN VANCOUVER
Can cities make money off public toilets? Some municipalities offset the cost of public toilets by setting up advertising deals.
Established companies like French firm JCDecaux provide and service self-cleaning public toilets to municipalities worldwide for free in exchange for the right to post advertising on benches, kiosks and other street furniture.
Vancouver opted to go with JCDecaux in 2007, signing a contract to install and maintain eight self-cleaning public toilets downtown.
They included two toilets in the Downtown Eastside neighbourhood — an area long plagued by the ills of drug addiction, mental illness and homelessness. Laneways there had to be flushed nightly to remove the filth of human excrement and urine and its odours, which helped to spur the quest for public toilets.
In exchange for installing and servicing the toilets, JCDecaux sells advertisements on the sides of street furniture it supplies, and pays a portion of its profits back to Vancouver.
The city is up to nine public toilets now, with three more coming in the next two years, and pays about $400,000 annually to maintain them, the Vancouver Sun reported.
City councillors are pushing for more so older residents and those with medical issues will feel more comfortable “going out to run errands, exercise and socialize, thus encouraging healthy, active aging,” Vancouver’s senior advisory committee said.
Vancouver also has 94 public toilets in its city parks, but most are locked by dusk.
Vancouver, like Montreal, lacks public facilities in its public transit systems, another barrier to mobility for people with urinary issues.
“We have found (the automated toilets) to be successful,” Amanda McCuaig, communications manager for the engineering division of the city of Vancouver, wrote in an email. “The units are available 24 hours per day, seven days per week, at no cost in the downtown area.”
Montreal, like Seattle (where city ordinances prohibit public advertising), is opting not to go with advertising-funded toilets “at this point,” de Repentigny wrote, presumably to limit the amount of advertising in the downtown core.
Those that have opted for the advertising-funded route have had issues, including in Los Angeles and New York, where neighbourhood groups protested building new structures on which to place ads, cutting the revenue needed to install new toilets.
Los Angeles and Vancouver officials reported few problems with crime or drugs in their facilities, although Vancouver residents have complained they can be dirty and smelly.
Still, as one person commented, they’re better than nothing in an emergency.
DRUG USE, ILLICIT SEX
Montreal’s toilets will need to be strong enough to withstand the hardships of winter, large enough to allow wheelchair access, and hardy enough to accommodate thousands of people a year, de Repentigny said.
One of Toronto’s public toilets — at Rees St. and Queens Quay W. in the Harbourfront area — sees more than 10,000 users a year.
The upscale Bryant Park public washroom in New York City, which just received a $300,000 upgrade — including framed art on the walls and imported tile — has more than 1.2 million visitors a year. It also has a full-time paid attendant to keep an eye on things.
Montreal’s toilets will not have any attendants, but the contractor is mandated to keep it stocked with disinfectant and toilet paper and ensure it’s in running order.
As well, Montreal’s contract calls for structures that blend in with the existing architecture. In a city that takes pride in its appearance, they must also aspire to a higher esthetic than the functional steel and brick prison-like facilities on offer in some areas.
The city is also holding the supplier responsible for ensuring the structures remain vandalism- and graffiti-free, which is why potential bidders like Urben Blu of Boisbriand bowed out, telling the Canoe.ca news outlet it felt the maintenance costs would add up to a loss.
Atmosphäre, which won the Montreal contract, is importing its toilets from Toilitech, an Italianbased firm that produces a wide variety of washrooms, mostly sold on the European market. Their website lists one outdoor toilet in North America, situated in Bromont.
Because the toilets will be located in high-traffic, well-lit areas, and the doors are programmed to open automatically after 15 to 20 minutes, Montreal authorities are hoping drug use and illicit sex won’t be a problem.
A sensor can also be placed in the floor to stop the door from closing if two adults are inside, de Repentigny said.
SEATTLE TRIES AGAIN
After conceding defeat with its toilets in 2008, Seattle decided to try again this year, this time opting for a simplified model.
It is planning to install a Portland Loo-style model in its historic Pioneer Square downtown neighbourhood where tourists, sports fans and the homeless congregate.
The cost is US$230,000, the Seattle Times reported, which includes $100,000 for the toilet itself and another $100,000 or more for installation, transportation and other contingencies.
Named for the Oregon city in which it was designed, the Portland Loo is made from heavygauge stainless steel with a graffiti-resistant finish and has angled steel slats at the top and bottom that allow police and others to see how many people are inside, while still providing privacy.
It also has a sink for hand-washing on the outside to discourage bathing and laundry-washing, and a concrete floor and a back door so workers can use a pressure washer several times a day to hose it down.
While those features make it cheaper and easier to clean and service, they would not work in a Montreal winter.
Victoria, with its milder climate, has a Portland Loo. In 2012, it won an award for Canada’s best public toilet.
In Seattle, locals applauded the city’s second attempt.
“This is about a basic human right,” Phil Bevis, the owner of Arundel Books in Pioneer Square, told the Times.
“This is a long time coming.”