City committee plumbs washroom finder app
When nature calls, Ottawa wants to answer. With an app. A report to the city’s finance and economic development committee next week proposes a mobile phone app to point users toward the nearest public toilet.
The city would compile and publish data regarding its public restrooms so that third-party developers may use it to create an app that would map the user’s current location and the nearest public toilets that are open at that time. People could also give each washroom a rating.
Information would include the location and operating hours of each city-managed washroom — found in places such as municipal buildings, libraries and recreation centres — along with other information, such as whether it can accommodate people with disabilities or parents who need a diaper-changing station.
Submitted by councillors Rick Chiarelli and Jeff Leiper, the proposal looks to relieve some of the pressure put on by the GottaGo! Campaign, which has been lobbying for more public washrooms, especially at the city’s planned LRT stations.
The app idea came out of a meeting between city staff and GottaGo! lobbyists, and is a compromise between the push for more facilities and the city’s desire to cut unnecessary costs, said Chiarelli.
The report suggests that making it easier for the public to locate washrooms would likely reduce the number of new washrooms the city might be required to build.
“Once people realize where all the existing ones are and they can access them, that should cut the demand to build new ones,” said Chiarelli, city councillor in the College ward. “We’ll still have to build some new ones, but this should take the pressure off, so to speak.”
The OC Transpo station at Baseline, for example, doesn’t have a washroom. But there are a number of toilets at Algonquin College next door and at nearby businesses. In that example, “we may not have to build as many or as big a washroom at Baseline Station, or maybe not at all,” said Chiarelli.
Councillors Catherine McKenney and Tobi Nussbaum have also expressed their support for greater provision of public washrooms, writing in a July blog post that it was the “top citizen concern” at this year’s budget consultations.
Recent efforts to make washrooms more available have been widespread.
This summer, Crohn’s and Colitis Canada launched a campaign called GoHere, which asks business owners and municipalities to post a decal to let people who have urgent and frequent bowel movements know they can use their toilet without making the “awkward” request for permission.
The finance and economic development committee will review the proposal on Tuesday.