New York City has an estimated 1,100 public bathrooms for a population of 8.8 million. This equals roughly one bathroom for every 8,000 residents. The city ranks quite poorly among other frequently-visited cities when it comes to providing accessible toilets. In fact, no American city ranks in the top 35 for restroom accessibility.
This is not to say that we don’t have any public restrooms in NYC. But, many of the public restrooms NYC does have are not well-maintained. In August 2024, the City Council released an assessment of NYC park restrooms titled “Nature’s Call,” and their findings were disappointing to say the least. The report states that roughly “two-thirds (66.6%) of all restrooms—68 of 102 we inspected or attempted to inspect—were closed or had health and safety issues.”.
It’s no wonder that many NYC sidewalks are littered with feces and reek of urine. This is the natural consequence of a lack of public restrooms to accommodate New Yorkers on the go. Everyone deserves access to public bathrooms, but pregnant women, small children, people with medical conditions, and the homeless depend on restroom access more than others. For New Yorkers like these, access to public restrooms must be in place for them to feel comfortable leaving their home and participating in society. For all New Yorkers, the frequent inability to relieve yourself is not only uncomfortable and degrading, but can also lead to severe health issues. Access to public restrooms is a matter of public health.
So why does NYC still have a public restroom shortage? According to a Roosevelt Island Daily article, “[t]he shortage of public toilets in New York City can be traced back decades ago to when city planners wanted to make the streets more attractive and welcoming for pedestrians. To do this, they removed some of the public amenities, such as garbage cans and street benches, but unfortunately along with them went public toilets.” Another article traces the lack of this amenity to the 1975 state law that banned pay-per-use toilets. This may have led attendants to be underpaid and quit, which forced these restrooms to close. NYC was granted an exception to this ban in 1993 and tried to implement automated public restrooms in places around the city under Mayor Bloomberg. Unfortunately, the city could not manage to set up more than a few. Complicating matters, many residents were hesitant to support this initiative, fearing an increased homeless or drug-use population. Without supportive votes from community boards, the project was stalled indefinitely.
Our public restroom problem needs to be solved. If we can’t get past public resistance towards Bloomberg-era proposals, we need to pursue new options. Instead of placing single-stall toilets throughout the city, close to fearful community board members, we can place them in parks, where their outdated and frequently filthy counterparts already exist without resistance. Currently, only “662 out of a total of 1,700 city parks have bathrooms. About 390 parks over an acre in size do not.”. We still have leftover Bloomberg-era toilets “sitting in a Queens warehouse” that were paid for and should be put to use. We should do so in a way that is the least fear-inducing and controversial. Although not a perfect solution to accessibility concerns, it is a good way to minimize waste and simultaneously increase the number of public bathrooms in parks while keeping costs low.
The New York City Council just approved a bill that would require the city to double its number of public restrooms by the year 2035. Hopefully, the local government is serious about giving New Yorkers the bathroom access they deserve this time.
