The 25 cent fee prevents people from spending more time in the toilets than needed.

The toilets provide shelter, protection, privacy, or simply a new place to hang out. If this were free, it would make the toilets less available for those who really need to relieve themselves, and it would invite vandals who might damage, or simply dirty the stall.

If people have to pay 25 cents every 20 minutes to stay in the room, the homeless are less likely to stake out the place as their hang out.

Agreed. The obvious parallel is to parking meters. I recall reading articles claiming when cities make on street parking free (as some do around Christmas) it makes people leave their cars there for long stretches of time and makes it much harder to find a parking spot when you really need one. Likewise, I can see the condition of free toilets deteriorating rapidly.

Saletan seems not to have thought this one through.

Idiots. Why do we have homeless people? Because more and more in the U.S. of Stupid we think that human lives are worthless and expendable.

Of COURSE facilities should be free. The Romans knew it, why don't we? Do you imagine the homeless have an option not to poop?

Another thing we ought to have, used to have and no longer do in many places: public waste baskets. Now instead of having waste in the proper places, we have it in the streets and dumped in roadside ditches.

In my part of the country, there's another phenomena of stupid: dead deer rotting by the roadsides. They stink all summer by million dollar homes and no one appears to give a damn. Nobody wants to pay for cleanup after deer accidents.

How soon will it be before we have dead people rotting on the roadsides?

Could be wrong, but I believe I recall reading about a streetside pay toilet, in Europe, I believe.

Cute feature was that after a few minutes, the door was programmed to pop open.

Next customer, please.

yes

i believe the toilets in question give you like ten or fifteen minutes then open then they completely sanitize themselves including the walls and floor.like flushing the whole room.this stops people from overstaying and getting sanitized themselves.

So you really think it's good huh? It just isn't working. It never will. It pollutes. Damage is done by it. It's intentional purpose is the of rotting out of America. Some people are to stupid to go to town. It's not civilized. It's not kosher. It's demeaning to Citizens.

And I thought it's purpose was to provide a place for folks to relieve themselves, Silly me. I should have known pay toilets were an evil conspiracy to destroy the nation and the planet.

The whole subject reminds me of an episode of Seinfeld, where George was telling Jerry that he had superior knowledge of office building rest rooms all over Manhattan, which could be accessed by the general public. Give Castanza a street or landmark and he could tell you the nearest available restroom and rate it.

Having grown up in NYC, I can tell you that this is very valuable information, indeed.

I'm sure the article was written as a humour piece, as I am sure that no reasonable person living in America thinks the government should have to pay us not to pee or crap in the street.

Have none of you ever needed to stay in a restroom a little longer than usual? Digestive disturbances, nausea, there are many reasons X-minutes may not be sufficient.

These will simply get vandalized to overdome the door-popping feature. I worked in a building with a dial-know timer for a light switch. It had to be replaced regularly, from people jamming it.

Besides, if it's like most places, all that sanitizing stuff, etc. will quit getting refilled after the novelty wears off. Many public restrooms I've been in, including in some restaurants, are perpetually out of soap, towels, and toilet papers and I assume urinal blocks in the men's rooms. In some places, people learn quickly to carry their own paper & soap.

I agree with you about the possibility for folks "hanging out", but I think that can be solved in other ways.

Providing free toilets helps to eliminate messes in the streets, as I noted in my post, "Compared to Europe, 25 cents is a bargain". There's nothing quite like seeing a bum make a mess in the middle of the sidewalk, as I saw while in Rome. It was right next to the metro station near our hotel. And the mess stayed there until it rained - no street sweepers or sidewalk caretakers there.

Aghast79:

I agree with you about the possibility for folks "hanging out", but I think that can be solved in other ways.

In my city, they've locked up the public restrooms in parks and replaced them with porta-johns. They're much cheaper to maintain (just pump and hose 'em out), people don't hang out/do drugs in them, hookers/johns don't utilize them, and the homeless don't sleep in them.

It's sad that we have to resort to this but it's better than the alternative (our public park restrooms were scary).

I started this thread, and to prove my point, today the NYT published this article about the closing of Seattles free toilets.

<link>

The article begins, "After spending $5 million on its five automated public toilets, Seattle is calling it quits. In the end, the restrooms, installed in early 2004, had become so filthy, so overrun with drug abusers and prostitutes, that although use was free of charge, even some of the city’s most destitute people refused to step inside them."