Public bathrooms are such an interesting public services issue. In some places it’s totally normal to pay a small fee, and in return you (usually) get a clean space. In other places, the idea of paying to use the bathroom is considered an offense against the public.

Years ago when I was in New York often, I had the idea to make a paid bathroom app, with a bit of a luxury twist. You’d pay $30 or whatever a month to have access to 40+ well-designed bathrooms across the city. The idea was that we’d own and operate these, and they’d be extremely well-designed, have beautiful tile interiors, come with a variety of hygiene products, water bottles, and so on.

I still think it could work, but over time I began to dislike the idea, as it would have been yet another example of the public commons essentially being eroded and replaced with a privatized paid system. Not that NYC public bathrooms are even remotely nice to begin with… but I think a better solution would be less deliberately exclusionary. Then again, what could be more NYC than the idea of paying money to get better things?

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arjie a day ago | parent | next [-]

I thought this sort of thing was what CEPTIA successfully campaigned against?

Also, what is the public commons that's being eroded in this scenario? Public toilets are few and far between but also kind of don't seem like a commons. I'd imagine a commons is something like a fishery or something. Pretty easy to control access to toilets. They have doors and as most European countries have proven, you can charge for the access to those doors.

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jakzurr 21 hours ago | parent | next [-]

In 1974 (about) I was at a Greyhound terminal in NY City. The large, attended restroom was almost all pay stalls, except for one free stall, and I really did not want to use that one.

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keiferski a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yeah I’m sure there would be a regulation against it, and you’d need to brand them as rest centers or something.

And I think public access to toilets, at least in NYC, should probably be something more like the subway system than a service just for those that can pay a lot. Even then, the subway isn’t really a life need in the way a toilet is. (Yes I’m aware that it costs money to ride the subway, but it’s not very expensive.) I can imagine the service I described being branded by the press/public as bathrooms only for the rich.

As I said, norms around this aren’t the same around the world. It’s normal to pay for a toilet in Europe but many Americans have a negative reaction to the idea.

	▲	arjie a day ago \| parent [-]
		Just in case you're not familiar with it, the reason there's a regulation against it is that a group of kids with the belief you're espousing lobbied for that regulation. They formed the Committee to End Pay Toilets in America. I suspect if there is a norm against this here in the US it was created around the time of that law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_to_End_Pay_Toilets_i...

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ButlerianJihad a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

As of about 15 years ago, Rudford's diner in San Diego (El Cajon Blvd) had pay toilets with the real authentic coin boxes on them. You didn't actually need to pay your own money; any waitress could provide you a coin when you asked. IIRC, they may have run on tokens only, so that it would be a closed ecosystem.

That may have been the only place I ever saw the real pay-toilet coin boxes. Anywhere else was simply gatekept by being a patron of the restaurant or store. Of course, in 1980s San Diego, there were zero public toilets of any kind, anywhere in town. All of the toilets were inside businesses, maintained by those businesses, and 100% closed to non-customers.

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procflora 21 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

My friend, handling the waste of all the people that live in a city is one of the most basic examples of the public commons I can imagine lol. What are you talking about?? It is a bit fundamental to the concept of a city!

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imglorp 21 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

And by corollary, a town with no public bathrooms is ignoring realities, ie the needs and comfort of the public. It's a signal: the question in those places is, what else are they willfully ignoring, what other responsibilities are they dodging?

	▲	kansface 19 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It’s more like addressing reality has no viable political solution.

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gosub100 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49422800

There was a huge discussion here last week ICYMI