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strbean 30 minutes ago [-]
I was in France recently and used a public restroom. It had an attendant, and a fee of €0.50. Charging for the restroom is unfortunate, but this setup is certainly better than eliminating public restrooms entirely.
Cthulhu_ 11 minutes ago [-]
The 50 cents is dual purpose, the one is obvious in that it pays for the attendant and them keeping it clean, but the other is like using a coin to unlock a trolley, it cuts back misuse by a lot. Once you've been to free vs 50 cent toilets a few times you'll see (and smell) the difference.
indoordin0saur 10 minutes ago [-]
Would much prefer this than what we have in NYC, which is go into a bar or cafe, buy something small and then use the restroom. Another thing I'll do sometimes is if I see a busy bar where the bartender isn't paying attention you can walk in, pretend you're looking for friends you're meeting, use the toilet and then sneak out.
18 minutes ago [-]
kazinator 26 minutes ago [-]
That practically ensures that some people who have to go really badly, and for whom €0.50 is a big deal, will just drop their business on the sidewalk.
seszett 9 minutes ago [-]
The only place in France I have seen this happen was Paris and public toilets are free there. I haven't seen paid toilets at all in France for a long time, actually. Maybe in train stations though.
strbean 2 minutes ago [-]
This was a year ago in Nice for reference.
ishouldstayaway 4 minutes ago [-]
> but this setup is certainly better than eliminating public restrooms entirely.
zamadatix 12 minutes ago [-]
Somehow that seems ensured regardless.
marssaxman 12 minutes ago [-]
how is that different from what they'd do if the pay toilet didn't exist?
cubefox 11 minutes ago [-]
It also makes it more likely that hobos and drug addicts don't soil and destroy the public bathrooms.
cube00 32 minutes ago [-]
Strange "For the Classroom" question.
Men seeking same-sex encounters transformed the pissoir into something its planners never intended. Who ultimately determines the meaning of a public space: its designers, authorities, or the people who use it?
The law determines that public space can't be used for any sexual activity.
I'm not sure what constructive classroom discussion you can have when the example is based on the law being broken.
teraflop 13 minutes ago [-]
Surely there are all kinds of interesting and constructive classroom discussions to be had about lawbreaking.
Classrooms teach about reality (among other things) and there are many things in reality that don't involve obedience to the law, as it exists at a particular time and place.
It sounds like, of the three options given, you are squarely in the “authorities” camp (although it seems to me that you interpret the question as asking what you believe should happen, whereas it appears to be asking what happens in practice). Wouldn’t it be interesting to hear the other points of view?
xhevahir 23 minutes ago [-]
They're probably talking about the sociological functions of the facility, not the set of legally permissible uses of it. (There's a pretty famous book on this particular application, Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex In Public Places.)
smcg 23 minutes ago [-]
That didn't stop... a lot of people.
izzydata 47 minutes ago [-]
I am going to start calling the reduction or removal of minor things that helped society "micro regressions".
mingus88 4 minutes ago [-]
I’m not sure it’s a regression really
If you look at a graph of the world population it’s seems clear to me that freely available common resources are just going to continue to get overused and ruined as we continue to add people to the equation
Avicebron 35 minutes ago [-]
Is tragedy of the commons overused?
jihadjihad 31 minutes ago [-]
Enpissification?
nashashmi 23 minutes ago [-]
Micro-regressions will largely be in the realm of charity and hospitality as society has aggressively embodied capitalism's cost and benefit analysis.
bluefirebrand 2 minutes ago [-]
Don't forget privacy
Feels like tons of micro regressions around our expectations of privacy these days
readingnews 1 hours ago [-]
This seems to be happening in public parks also. I visit two cities literally half way across the country from one another, and have visited them for decades. All of the public restrooms in the public city parks (which are quite popular with locals and tourists) are gone. First they closed them, then they tore down the buildings. Locals thought "oh, must be putting in new ones", but no, they were torn down and never replaced.
vondur 11 minutes ago [-]
Here in the SoCal area the homeless were taking over bathrooms to live in.
MrDrMcCoy 38 minutes ago [-]
I want to know where the public water fountains went. Those are arguably a safety feature.
redsocksfan45 25 minutes ago [-]
[dead]
forinti 20 minutes ago [-]
I used one these things in Portugal a few years ago.
They are definitely not thought for women.
Simon_O_Rourke 38 minutes ago [-]
I think it stopped once public bathrooms became used for things other than taking a whizz
expedition32 33 minutes ago [-]
Yeah you have to actually hire people to clean them and patrol for homeless weirdos.
Which is why in my country they cost money.
I never really understood the economics of public restrooms in America. Who pays for them?
selectodude 27 minutes ago [-]
We thought it was mean to homeless people to make them pay for bathrooms and made it illegal to charge. Then once bathrooms because a massive cost center, we closed all the public restrooms and made it a sex offense to piss outside. So now instead of making homeless people pay $1 for a toilet, we throw them in jail at a cost of $100k/yr.
Having lived in SF, LA and NYC, I find it very hard to believe that the homeless or the addicts roaming the streets in big cities are being thrown into jail for much of anything short of overt violent behavior. You can see people drop a deuce in the middle of Mission St any day of the week and nobody bats an eye. As people say, "it's just a normal part of life in a big city".
jerlam 14 minutes ago [-]
We're not throwing the homeless in jail here, but all the streets smell like urine and you have to watch your step on the sidewalk.
cnity 30 minutes ago [-]
The public pays for them via taxes.
addaon 30 minutes ago [-]
> Who pays for them?
Americans. The same population as most of the beneficiaries.
mosura 28 minutes ago [-]
The problem with homeless is also what do you do with them when you find them?
nitwit005 14 minutes ago [-]
Several bathrooms at the openings to hiking trails near me had been smeared with feces. The local newspaper reported someone was caught and taken to a homeless shelter. I remain suspicious that simply resulted in the shelter's bathroom meeting the same fate.
alephnerd 25 minutes ago [-]
> I never really understood the economics of public restrooms in America. Who pays for them?
Local sales, income, and/or property taxes.
Municipalities, counties, state, and the federal government all have the power of taxation in the US.
ssl-3 15 minutes ago [-]
We all pay for it. We do this whether publicly-accessible restrooms exist or do not exist.
Everybody poops; shit happens. The only real question is: Where does this shit happen?
kazinator 23 minutes ago [-]
A pissoir is of little comfort when you badly need a shittoir.
curtisblaine 9 minutes ago [-]
Fun that this article concentrates on gay sex restrictions and pressure by temperance advocates - two "enemies" that conveniently serve a certain social agenda - while public toilets, at least in Europe, died because of heroin users in the 70s and 80s (they used bathrooms to inject, often leaving their syringes behind, and that became a real problem and society-wide panic during the AIDS boom) and because of the increasing number of homeless people later - who used to clean themselves in public toilets with a sink and more often than not left them in terrible conditions.
beardyw 26 minutes ago [-]
Yes, where are you going to take a bath, in public.
It's interesting that this subject is awash with euphemisms. At least pissoir is properly descriptive.
jonshariat 53 minutes ago [-]
Something else I've noticed, garbage cans are disappearing.
I had some trash in my car I needed to get rid of: McDonalds? None outside, Tacobell? none outside, CVS? none outside OR inside, The entire rest of that shopping center? nope.
Luckily gas stations still have them but its sad to see these community service type things disappear.
devin 19 minutes ago [-]
This reminds me of a story I heard (read?) a long time ago. At Disney World they had a rule about a garbage can being within a 10 foot distance of basically anywhere in the park. The logic was that when a garbage can is nearby, there is additional social pressure not to litter, and the result was that they were able to save money on park cleanup because people used the cans.
When I see lone overflowing garbage cans in big cities I think about this.
etc-hosts 19 minutes ago [-]
I haul my garbage home in my backpack like a good little global citizen but the lack of trash cans in San Francisco is crazy
You would think it's in the interest of whoever is responsible for keeping those areas clean to offer garbage cans.
xahrepap 14 minutes ago [-]
I live by a park. These places don't care for the same reason the park doesn't care: the wind blows it all in my yard, not their problem anymore.
ssl-3 10 minutes ago [-]
It would be, if the responsible parties were making rational decisions.
curtisblaine 4 minutes ago [-]
In city centers it's usually counter-terrorism: it's easy to throw a timed bomb in a metal garbage can and flee the scene, so they got rid of them (London did because of IRA, and of course now they have Islamic terrorism). Outside of city centers it's about (lack of) recycling: it's easier to check if you're recycling correctly in your home bin than public bins.
tamimio 14 minutes ago [-]
Blame the raccoons!
Daviey 56 minutes ago [-]
They all look like lovely "cottages".
zabzonk 41 minutes ago [-]
Hence one of the activities they are best known for - "cottaging".
testing22321 25 minutes ago [-]
Friends were just in Australia and were immensely impressed by not only the ubiquitous public bathrooms, but also how well maintained and clean they are.
> Starting a national crusade to cast away coin-operated commodes, Gessel told newsmen, "You can have a fifty-dollar bill, but if you don't have a dime, that metal box is between you and relief."
I'm sympathetic to this argument. Carrying around loose change with US-style billfold wallets has never been convenient, and back in the day you'd often find yourself without change for a bus fare or a pay phone and so on in a critical moment.
Today, though, almost everyone carries either a contactless credit card or a phone with an NFC wallet. I would pay $0.25 for access to a clean public toilet if I could swipe one of those instead of having to carry change.
LA Metro has these restroom facilities at their rail stations, which are free for a 10 minute visit but require an access code on your phone or a standalone entry pass. I've never used one, but heard great things. https://thronelabs.co/
baggy_trough 16 minutes ago [-]
Another example of completely counterproductive interference in the free market, this time eliminating public toilets more or less entirely because you can't make money from them and the state is too incompetent to provide them.
baggy_trough 38 minutes ago [-]
They were lost due to the tender ministrations of the bottom quintile.
ModernMech 48 minutes ago [-]
This is why anyone from Eastern PA knows Wawa is considered essential public infrastructure.
gib444 11 minutes ago [-]
In the UK, it's a big pub chain called Wetherspoons. City centres often have multiple of them too. I don't think any of the toilets need an access code, unlike a lot of other places.
You can get a £2 pint of cider or ~£1.80 half-decent coffee while you're there too
bethekidyouwant 32 minutes ago [-]
Just switch to porta-potties.
micromacrofoot 36 minutes ago [-]
> Notably, they were only intended for use by men.
this complicates public bathrooms quite a bit, and ADA requirements do too... once you've got a place to sit and doors on rooms you've got the vagrancy and drug use problem
though China does ok with the model of a big room with holes in the ground and almost no dividers or affordances at all (everyone brings their own toilet paper, old people bring their own chairs)... they have public workers to hose them out
mosura 18 minutes ago [-]
Sounds like the Romans had it better than your description of the Chinese, though I am sure in the modern world someone would be stealing the sponges for unfathomable reasons.
Men seeking same-sex encounters transformed the pissoir into something its planners never intended. Who ultimately determines the meaning of a public space: its designers, authorities, or the people who use it?
The law determines that public space can't be used for any sexual activity.
I'm not sure what constructive classroom discussion you can have when the example is based on the law being broken.
Classrooms teach about reality (among other things) and there are many things in reality that don't involve obedience to the law, as it exists at a particular time and place.
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...
If you look at a graph of the world population it’s seems clear to me that freely available common resources are just going to continue to get overused and ruined as we continue to add people to the equation
Feels like tons of micro regressions around our expectations of privacy these days
They are definitely not thought for women.
I never really understood the economics of public restrooms in America. Who pays for them?
Thank these folks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_to_End_Pay_Toilets_i... - the road to hell is paved with good intentions I suppose.
Americans. The same population as most of the beneficiaries.
Local sales, income, and/or property taxes.
Municipalities, counties, state, and the federal government all have the power of taxation in the US.
Everybody poops; shit happens. The only real question is: Where does this shit happen?
It's interesting that this subject is awash with euphemisms. At least pissoir is properly descriptive.
I had some trash in my car I needed to get rid of: McDonalds? None outside, Tacobell? none outside, CVS? none outside OR inside, The entire rest of that shopping center? nope.
Luckily gas stations still have them but its sad to see these community service type things disappear.
When I see lone overflowing garbage cans in big cities I think about this.
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SAN-FRANCISCO-Trash-c...
Tons of free to use BBQs too.
> Starting a national crusade to cast away coin-operated commodes, Gessel told newsmen, "You can have a fifty-dollar bill, but if you don't have a dime, that metal box is between you and relief."
I'm sympathetic to this argument. Carrying around loose change with US-style billfold wallets has never been convenient, and back in the day you'd often find yourself without change for a bus fare or a pay phone and so on in a critical moment.
Today, though, almost everyone carries either a contactless credit card or a phone with an NFC wallet. I would pay $0.25 for access to a clean public toilet if I could swipe one of those instead of having to carry change.
LA Metro has these restroom facilities at their rail stations, which are free for a 10 minute visit but require an access code on your phone or a standalone entry pass. I've never used one, but heard great things. https://thronelabs.co/
You can get a £2 pint of cider or ~£1.80 half-decent coffee while you're there too
this complicates public bathrooms quite a bit, and ADA requirements do too... once you've got a place to sit and doors on rooms you've got the vagrancy and drug use problem
though China does ok with the model of a big room with holes in the ground and almost no dividers or affordances at all (everyone brings their own toilet paper, old people bring their own chairs)... they have public workers to hose them out