Cities looking to public restrooms to clean up downtowns, attract tourists
Here on Tremont Place, there’s a beacon of relief for lunching office workers, tourists shuttling along a nearby pedestrian mall, and the city’s growing homeless population.
It’s a public bathroom, and until last spring it wasn’t easy to find one in this part of downtown Denver.
Encased in a trailer that moves around the city, the three-stall bathroom offers the amenities of any brickand-mortar facility — lights, running water and flushing toilets. An attendant cleans up between users, does minor repairs, and polices for illicit activity.
“We’re encouraging people to walk and bike and use transit and it just makes sense then to offer a public restroom as well in these places where people are gathering,” said Angela Casias, legislative services manager for the Denver Department of Public Works. “[We’re] trying to have a positive impact on all kinds of people.”
Denver is one of several U.S. cities using bathrooms not only to clean up areas rife with public urination and defecation, but also to increase tourism and foot traffic.
Portland, Oregon, has become famous for its Portland Loo, a stand-alone steel bathroom stall that sits on a city sidewalk and, unlike a traditional porta-potty, connects to public water and sewer. San Antonio, San Francisco, Seattle, and a host of smaller cities have experimented with similar bathrooms.
City and planning officials say the bathrooms not only clean up streets because they offer a place for people to relieve themselves during big events and for homeless people to use on a regular basis, but that they also encourage those with health conditions to visit downtown areas because they know a restroom will be available.
“Knowing that there’s a restroom there supports you physically and puts your mind at ease,” said Carol McCreary, program manager for Public Hygiene Lets Us Stay Human (PHLUSH), a Pacific Northwest-based advocacy group focused on access to public restrooms. “People will not congregate in multigenerational groups in public space unless the