0:00

Colin. Guys, this is exciting. What's

0:02

on my mind today is I love

0:04

a proper winter. Hi, I have

0:06

a question about the Hartford Whalers. I

0:08

want to talk about handball. just want to talk

0:10

a little bit about vernacular and language. I'm wondering

0:12

what your favorite song was. The question is,

0:14

is a hot dog a sandwich? Who are

0:16

those people talking? Well, most Mondays at 1

0:18

p .m. on the Colin McEnroe Show, we do

0:20

take your calls about whatever you want to

0:22

talk about. And you can also find us

0:24

live on YouTube and send us a comment.

0:26

But not about my appearance. Just search for

0:28

Connecticut. it public. The following program

0:31

was previously recorded. Excuse

0:34

me. I'm sorry. This

0:37

is kind of

0:39

embarrassing, but there's no toilet paper

0:41

over here. Are

0:44

you talking to me? Yeah, I just

0:46

forgot to check. So if you

0:48

could spare some. No, I'm

0:50

sorry. What? No,

0:52

I'm sorry, I can't spare it. You

0:54

can't spare it? No, there's not enough

0:57

to spare. Well, I don't need

0:59

much. Just three squares will do

1:01

it. I'm sorry, I don't have three

1:03

squares. Now, if you don't mind,

1:05

three squares? You can't spare three square?

1:07

No, I don't have a square to spare.

1:09

I can't spare a square. Well, is

1:11

it two ply? Because if it's two ply,

1:13

I'll take one ply. One

1:16

ply! One puny little

1:18

ply, I'll take one measly ply! All

1:26

right. That, of course, is from

1:28

Seinfeld. That is Elaine. And

1:30

it turns out later that the woman who

1:32

will not give her toilet paper is

1:35

Jerry's date. And they're all together.

1:37

Hilarious complications ensue. And actually,

1:39

I would say mainly on television.

1:42

are conditions having to do

1:44

with needing to pee, needing

1:46

toilet paper, not having the

1:48

right place to go. Only

1:50

on television are those things

1:52

hilarious. Mostly they're either really,

1:54

really annoying, angering. frustrating

1:57

or just really worrying. So

1:59

we're going to talk about this today. We have several

2:01

guests for you. We will, I'm going

2:03

to give out the phone number in a

2:05

little while and we'll try to take

2:07

a few calls. Honestly, I can't take a

2:09

lot of calls because we got pledge

2:11

breaks in the middle of the show. And

2:13

also there's parts of this conversation that

2:15

could easily go for two hours if we

2:18

had those. So I can take a

2:20

lot of calls, but we'll put a few

2:22

calls out there. But yes, I mean,

2:24

the driving force behind this and kind of

2:26

the main reason I started thinking about

2:28

doing it is that Nicholas Kristof wrote a

2:30

piece in the New York Times about

2:32

how America – he seemed to think this

2:35

was a problem specific to America, which

2:37

is kind of odd because Nicholas Kristof goes

2:39

a lot of places. But America is

2:41

not a good place to need to go

2:43

to the bathroom in public environments. We

2:45

just don't do that well. And then that

2:47

occasioned – and this is really what

2:49

sort of triggered me into wanting to do

2:51

this. One of those days when the

2:54

New York Times – only has

2:56

letters about this one topic. But

2:58

it's usually like impeachment or something.

3:00

But on the following Sunday, all

3:02

of the letters in The New

3:04

York Times were about public toilets.

3:06

And I thought, this is big.

3:08

We have to do this. So

3:10

here we go. And joining us

3:12

now is the perfect person to

3:15

talk to, Leslie Lowe, teaches journalism

3:17

at the University of King's College

3:19

and is the author of No

3:21

Place to Go, How Public Toilets

3:23

Fail Our Private Needs. I

3:25

would like to say before I bring

3:27

her on board that this book should be

3:29

accompanied by a warning sticker that says, warning,

3:32

while reading this book, you will constantly think

3:34

that you need to go pee, even if

3:36

you just did like three minutes ago. At

3:38

least that was my overall experience of reading

3:40

it. Leslie Lowe, welcome to our show. Happy

3:43

to oblige. So,

3:45

yeah, I guess maybe the place

3:47

to begin here is this

3:49

is a situation. that you

3:51

might think would be getting better,

3:53

you know, as we sort of

3:55

rethink our obligations to different groups

3:58

in society, as we try to

4:00

understand very specific issues that women

4:02

have that maybe men don't have,

4:04

as we begin to incorporate trans

4:06

and other gender nonconforming people into

4:08

our society, you would think that

4:11

overall public toilets would be something

4:13

that were thought about, thought about

4:15

in a new way and kind

4:17

of amplified in terms of access.

4:19

And from what I can tell,

4:21

exactly the opposite is happening. Yeah,

4:24

I think the opposite is

4:26

happening. I think in part we

4:28

have to sort of contextualize

4:30

this with COVID because I do

4:33

think there are more people

4:35

than ever talking about the need

4:37

for public bathrooms and really

4:39

understanding that public bathrooms contribute to

4:41

everybody's ability to use public

4:43

space. So I do see lots

4:45

of signs that the ideas

4:48

are changing. But

4:50

I think, you know, what's kind

4:52

of hampered that particularly acutely is

4:54

COVID, which has shifted everything in

4:56

the world. And also,

4:58

you know, public bathrooms can

5:01

be, and I don't mean

5:03

public bathrooms as the bathrooms

5:05

in McDonald's or Starbucks or

5:07

your local independent cafe, but

5:10

on -street government -funded bathrooms are

5:12

expensive, you know? And so...

5:14

I think jurisdictions need to think through really

5:17

clearly where they want to put their

5:19

money. And frequently, for a whole bunch of

5:21

reasons we can probably talk about, bathrooms

5:23

just get pushed down the list.

5:26

Right. Well, there are a whole

5:28

bunch of reasons. And some of

5:30

them are issues of negligence. And

5:33

some of them, I think, are

5:36

because it's sort of a subject that

5:38

we... like keeping top of mind,

5:40

or at least a lot of people

5:42

don't. But it's also money, right?

5:44

It's money. They are expensive to maintain,

5:46

and people make sexy time in

5:48

them, and people vandalize them, and somebody's

5:50

got to maintain them, and everybody's

5:52

municipal budget is strapped for cash. So,

5:54

I mean, is that sort of

5:56

issue number one that you should pardon

5:58

the expression? You

6:01

mean the cost? Yeah. I

6:03

don't think that is the

6:05

number one issue that people

6:07

should be thinking about because

6:09

I think that is a

6:11

view that neglects to consider

6:13

all of the myriad benefits

6:15

of having public bathrooms in

6:17

specifically, let's say, downtown course.

6:20

And so we can talk about,

6:22

you know, all the good

6:24

things like, you know, equity for

6:26

people who need this. this

6:28

amenity, which is everybody, everybody needs

6:31

this. Some people are more

6:33

cut off than others. So if

6:35

you're experiencing homelessness, you're probably

6:37

more likely to need a public

6:39

bathroom than somebody who's not

6:41

experiencing homelessness. And cities ought to

6:43

be working to level the

6:45

playing field in that way. And

6:47

so there's that. But the

6:49

other thing I frequently point

6:51

people to is I ask

6:54

the question, why do you

6:56

think malls have great public

6:58

bathrooms? And the answer

7:00

is, well, sometimes people say,

7:02

oh, well, because they want it to

7:04

be a nice experience and they

7:06

want people to feel good when they're

7:08

there. Yes, that is true. But

7:10

the reason is because they want people to stay

7:12

there and spend money. The malls

7:14

are not operating because, oh, out

7:17

of the kindness of their hearts,

7:19

they think it would be nice

7:21

for everybody to have public bathrooms.

7:23

They're doing that because we know

7:25

that when there are... you know,

7:27

appropriate amenities in place, people stay

7:29

longer in spaces. And so for

7:32

downtown cores, particularly that are trying

7:34

to revitalize, to me, yes, it

7:36

is a big cost. And maybe

7:38

that is the primary cost people

7:40

think about in terms of that

7:42

economic argument, but there are payoffs.

7:46

economic and social that we seem to kind

7:48

of discount when we talk about public bathrooms.

7:50

Yeah, I think it's a great point. I

7:52

think also negatives weigh on people's minds more

7:54

than positives so that I don't think anybody

7:56

comes back from vacation and says, yeah, we

7:58

were just in Santa Fe and it was

8:00

terrific. The public bathrooms are. Great. You know,

8:02

you really never had to worry about where

8:04

you were going to go to the bathroom.

8:06

I don't even know if that's true about

8:08

Santa Fe. This is just an example. But

8:10

people aren't going to say that. But they

8:12

are going to say, I just got back

8:14

from San Francisco. And they're like dookie on

8:16

the sidewalk. That was really disgusting. And it

8:18

happened more than once. So, I mean, it's

8:21

sort of when it's not done right, that

8:23

really does become kind of a deal breaker. Yeah.

8:26

But, you know, it's interesting

8:28

just getting back to that idea

8:30

of are things changing or things

8:32

should be changing, you know. We've

8:34

seen a shift in the last,

8:36

let's say, 15, 20 years with

8:38

more and more people talking about,

8:40

you know, pedestrian friendly cities, age

8:43

friendly cities. This is a huge

8:45

thing. You know, the baby boomers have

8:47

made it so that aging in

8:50

place is really important. We need people

8:52

to be able to navigate their

8:54

cities at any age and walkability. And

8:56

part of this is because of

8:58

climate change and the effects of that.

9:00

But public bathrooms are are baked

9:02

in. baked into all of those concepts

9:04

when we talk about a city

9:06

that is friendly for cyclists you have

9:08

to have a city where people

9:10

can stop to use the bathroom and

9:12

i i see politicians talk about

9:15

that and that's fantastic but what needs

9:17

to follow is kind of the

9:19

next step which is the planning and

9:21

the money By the

9:23

way, if anybody does want

9:25

to call in, we can try

9:27

to squeeze a few calls

9:29

in here. The number is 888

9:32

-720 -WNPR. That's 888 -720 -9677. So,

9:34

yeah, you know, heading into this show,

9:36

I was sort of thinking, well, the women

9:38

versus men issue, that's sort of a

9:40

separate issue. do a whole show on that.

9:42

Let's just talk about it just in

9:44

terms of just whether there are enough bathrooms

9:46

or not. And then I read your

9:48

book and I thought, well, no, that's wrong.

9:50

I mean, this really does weigh more

9:52

heavily on women for like eight different reasons,

9:55

starting with the fact, and I did

9:57

not know this, that it takes longer for

9:59

women just to empty their bladder. Forget

10:01

about finding a stall and making the misaligned

10:03

lock work and, you know, all the

10:05

other stuff. Just emptying it out takes longer.

10:08

Yep. It absolutely does. Women

10:10

take about twice as long as

10:12

men to use the bathroom for all

10:14

of those reasons. And that explains, I

10:17

often do this when I will do

10:19

a public talk, explain the kind of

10:21

calculus behind that. Very, very broad strokes.

10:24

Many, many bathrooms that were

10:26

designed in the 20th

10:28

century. If you think

10:30

about, you know, I can think in Halifax

10:32

where I live. prominent concert

10:35

hall. So on every floor, there's

10:37

a set of binary bathrooms, male,

10:39

female, same floor space

10:41

in each side. Male floor space is

10:43

equal to female floor space. In

10:45

the female side, you fit three stalls.

10:47

In the male side, you fit

10:49

two stalls and four urinals. And so

10:51

right there, you can see men

10:53

have twice the provision of... women.

10:57

But women take about twice as long.

10:59

So right there in that sort of

11:01

calculus, you can immediately see why there

11:03

are lineups for the bathroom and why

11:05

women struggle so much to get access.

11:07

Right. I mean, I think occasionally we

11:10

in recently, you know, heavily remodeled places,

11:12

we sometimes see something a little bit

11:14

better than that. I could be wrong

11:16

about this, in which case I will

11:18

be shouted at, I'm sure. Right.

11:21

You're right. Yeah. And yeah, so

11:23

there's potty parity laws which dictate that

11:25

women need get two to three

11:27

times the provision of men in new

11:29

or extensively renovated buildings. Yeah. So,

11:31

well, before we go any further, you

11:33

know, you might think, well, who

11:35

what kind of person would have the

11:37

kind of right kind of sensitivity

11:39

to think this thing through in a

11:41

way that would, you know, properly

11:43

kind of align the advantages of each

11:45

of each group? And of course,

11:47

everybody thinks of Larry David. So, Kat,

11:49

let's hear that. Look

11:52

at this. See, this is smart. The ladies get

11:54

to sit down. This makes sense. No, no, no. They

11:56

don't sit. They

11:58

squat. I don't get

12:00

it. Women don't want to sit. They're very

12:03

envious that we can't. They have pee

12:05

envy, actually. Look what I've done for them.

12:07

Okay. See? Grab

12:09

onto these bars. The ladies

12:11

go in here. They don't touch anything.

12:13

They're not touching. That's what they

12:15

don't like. They don't like touching the toilet. It's like

12:17

a Pilates class, though. Is it hard? You don't

12:20

want to go too much longer than a pee time.

12:22

I wouldn't stay here all day. And the pants

12:24

go where? Yeah, I don't

12:26

know. Whatever they do with them. Come and

12:28

join me. Settle up. Yeah? Yeah. Okay. Just

12:30

grab on here? Yeah, grab on here. Let's

12:32

see how we do it. Yeah. Oh,

12:35

this one feels good. Yeah. This

12:37

is empowering. Yeah. Just this body

12:39

position makes me feel strong. I'm really tired. Did

12:41

you consult women on this? No. They'll

12:44

love this, though. Oh, yeah. I like the feeling here.

12:46

Yeah, okay. The girl's gonna love it. My legs are killing

12:49

me. So beneath

12:51

that comedy is a deeper truth,

12:53

Leslie Lowe, that you point out in

12:55

the book, which is, you know,

12:57

most spaces that, you know, particularly

12:59

spaces that have existed more than, say, 10,

13:01

15, 20 years, most of them have been

13:03

designed by men, correct? Yes,

13:05

that's correct. And built by men and

13:07

maintained by men. Yeah. Yeah. So, I

13:10

mean, they're just not going to be

13:12

as good at thinking this through. And,

13:14

know, we talked just about, you know,

13:16

how long it takes to empty the

13:18

bladder, but it's more complicated than that,

13:20

right? Women are more likely to have

13:22

kids with them. Women menstruate. There's like

13:24

a lot of reasons why, in fact,

13:26

women are going to need probably an

13:28

even greater accommodation than just, you know,

13:31

the time it takes to empty their

13:33

bladder. Yeah, that's right. Women are visiting

13:35

the bathroom for more reasons. They are

13:37

visiting the bathroom more frequently than men.

13:39

And they're more frequently in charge of

13:41

people they are caring for. So that

13:43

ends up being, you know, kind of

13:45

doubling or tripling or however many people

13:47

you have with you, the times you're

13:50

going in and it takes longer when

13:52

you do so. We

13:55

should maybe just talk about who

13:57

does do this well. Is anybody doing

13:59

this well? And I guess when I

14:01

say this, I mean that idea of

14:04

toilets, specifically public toilets. We can talk

14:06

about McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts and

14:08

all that kind of stuff a little

14:10

bit later. But just toilets that anybody

14:12

can use. We're

14:14

going to talk about the Portland Lou in

14:16

a separate segment in the final part of

14:18

the show. But is anybody else doing it

14:20

well? So I

14:23

write in my book a lot

14:25

about San Francisco, which has had some

14:27

pretty epic difficulties with open defecation.

14:29

And many, many, many other cities deal

14:31

with this. But San Francisco is

14:33

kind of... um the the big example

14:35

everybody gives and they've had significant

14:37

issues and they've they've really risen to

14:39

the challenge of dealing with that

14:41

and they've created something called the the

14:44

pit stop model of toilet provision

14:46

which is in some cases um toilets

14:48

that are taken to high needs

14:50

areas so they're trailer toilets um so

14:52

they're available for people when they

14:54

need them and they've also you know

14:56

they installed quite quite a few

14:58

decades ago, some automated public toilets, which

15:00

many listeners may be familiar with.

15:03

They're on street, they're, you know, kind

15:05

of robot toilets. The door slides

15:07

open, you go in, you can use

15:09

the toilet and it kind of

15:11

washes down when you're finished. But what

15:13

they did is they found that

15:15

they had installed those. This is a

15:17

mistake lots of places make is

15:19

they think, oh, great, we'll just plunk

15:22

this thing here and we'll walk

15:24

away. You know, and we'll just top

15:26

up the toilet paper every once

15:28

in a while, but the problem, there

15:30

are a number of problems with

15:32

that. And in part it's, you know,

15:34

we see sex work, we see

15:36

drug use, we see people not wanting

15:38

to use those toilets because they

15:40

functionally not, not, they're no longer toilets,

15:43

right? There's, they're public spaces that

15:45

are used for other things. So

15:47

what. San Francisco has done is

15:49

created the pit stop model. And

15:51

in part on a number of

15:53

those automated toilets, they have attendance,

15:55

you know, and that's kind of

15:57

a mid 20th century idea and

15:59

earlier that we think about where,

16:01

you know, you don't have toilet

16:03

attendance anymore, but this is a

16:05

fantastic model. And it basically means

16:07

somebody stands on the outside of

16:09

the toilet, maintains the queue. You

16:12

know, I've I've been to a

16:14

few of these in San Francisco and

16:16

it's, you know, not identifying myself

16:18

as a reporter or researcher, but just

16:20

chatting with the person. And

16:22

then you can use the toilet.

16:24

And when you come out, it gets

16:26

just a brief check to make

16:29

sure it's OK and good to go

16:31

for the next person. And that's

16:33

it. And that's been pretty successful in

16:35

San Francisco. And it's really shifted

16:37

those toilets. That were not being

16:39

used as toilets back to amenities that everybody

16:41

can use. Right. I spent a lot

16:43

of time on their site today and it's

16:45

very interesting. And a lot of the

16:47

employees are former prisoners. So that's

16:49

a way of generating employment. Although it

16:51

being San Francisco, I think the public

16:53

works department says at one point. And

16:55

so like putting these things into certain

16:58

areas frees up the public works staff

17:00

to go deal with public being in

17:02

defecation in other areas. So they haven't

17:04

completely got enough of these. to completely

17:06

knock the problem down. All right. We're

17:08

going to take a quick break. We'll

17:10

be back with more of Leslie Lowe

17:12

after this. Support

17:43

for this podcast comes from Hartford

17:45

HealthCare. Elevating Health is funded by

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more, go to ctpublic .org slash

18:44

elevatinghealth. You're listening to

18:46

a broadcast of a previously recorded program.

18:48

We're talking about public toilets and where

18:50

do you go when you got to

18:52

go. We're talking about it with Leslie

18:54

Lowe, whose book is No Place to

18:56

Go, How Public Toilets Fail Our Private

18:58

Needs. I said we'd take a call

19:00

or two. Let's take a call from

19:02

Eliad in New Haven. Hi, you're on

19:04

the air. Hi

19:07

there, Colin. Thanks for having

19:09

me on. Big fan of the show. Well, thank

19:11

you. Yeah,

19:13

so I feel pretty strongly about

19:15

this. I definitely think there

19:17

should be more public toilets, more

19:20

public restrooms. And I was

19:22

interested in hearing, was it Leslie who

19:24

was talking? Yeah. I'm sorry. No, she's

19:26

still here, too. All right. Well, yeah.

19:28

Hi, Leslie. Hi. When

19:30

you were talking about costs, and

19:32

I just think it's more interesting.

19:35

I feel like we should be

19:37

discussing even more of the cost.

19:39

of not having public restrooms. And

19:41

to me, it just seems like

19:43

we're missing out on so much

19:45

and that it's adjacent to another

19:48

issue that I care a lot

19:50

about, and that's that there's not

19:52

enough public water fountains. So I

19:54

guess I'd like to hear your

19:56

take on that, Leslie, and how

19:58

public water fountains fit in this

20:01

whole dynamic of needing more basic

20:03

amenities in our... areas. You know,

20:05

I don't know if we have

20:07

time to really have a big

20:09

conversation about public water fountains. And

20:11

I also sort of wonder how

20:14

COVID affects all that. But I

20:16

think, you know, we're having a

20:18

big conversation, Leslie, here in the

20:20

USA about infrastructure and, you know,

20:22

a massive infrastructure bill. But, you

20:24

know, and you'd think that maybe

20:27

something as basic as going to

20:29

the bathroom would be considered infrastructure.

20:31

Somehow it isn't. Yeah.

20:33

I mean, I think the I

20:35

think it's all part and parcel

20:37

of the same kind of issues

20:39

when you talk about, you know,

20:42

the big infrastructure bill that Biden

20:44

is proposing. But also, you know,

20:46

bathrooms are places where we practice

20:48

hand hygiene, which is essential during

20:50

COVID. And there are also places

20:52

where we fill water bottles. I know

20:54

you're going to talk to Evan from

20:56

the Portland Lou's, but the Portland Lou

20:58

has. He can speak

21:01

to this, but potable water that's available

21:03

on the outside of the Portland loop.

21:05

So that acts kind of as a

21:07

public fountain. And again,

21:09

that may be affected by

21:11

COVID. But I think it

21:13

speaks to this this big

21:15

idea that in cities we

21:17

we have a certain expectation.

21:19

And this is, you know, pan

21:22

national about. the kinds of things that

21:24

we expect our cities to have, the

21:26

kind of basket of goods that are

21:28

part of the common. You

21:31

know, I would say

21:33

there's kind of universal ones

21:35

like sidewalks and streetlights

21:37

and stop signs and benches

21:39

and trash cans. But

21:41

somehow, public bathrooms

21:43

quite acutely have been

21:45

locked off that list. And

21:47

I think that's really

21:49

come about because we've seen

21:51

the rise of publicly

21:53

accessible. bathrooms that would be

21:55

the ones in inside fast food

21:57

restaurants or other other stores and so

22:00

municipalities have kind of gladly let

22:02

go of public bathrooms because they can

22:04

offload it onto businesses which I

22:06

don't think is the way to go

22:08

as far as drinking fountains go

22:10

I think you know I suspect it's

22:12

along the same lines it's this

22:14

idea of what do we expect our

22:16

tax dollars to provide for us

22:18

in order for us to use our

22:21

cities One of my

22:23

favorite things in your book was a

22:25

field experiment. It probably deserved to fail,

22:27

but was kind of an app type

22:29

of thing called Air P &P. Just explain

22:31

what Air P &P was. Air

22:33

P &P was, as you may

22:36

imagine, you could list your

22:38

bathroom, your urban bathroom, and the

22:40

cost for its use on

22:42

this app. And then people could

22:44

just book it and use

22:46

it like quite last minute. Yeah,

22:49

it failed though. I

22:51

wonder if it was like Uber, whether there was

22:53

sort of, you know, high traffic congestion pricing and

22:55

stuff like that. But you'd want to make it

22:57

fairly elastic that way. So

22:59

maybe just... a

23:02

second or two talking about what you

23:04

just said, that kind of third space,

23:06

public -private bathroom. You know, I grew

23:08

up in the era of Howard Johnson's,

23:10

and that was like a big selling

23:12

point, as I remember. We had clean,

23:14

well -lighted restrooms, so stop there with your

23:16

family. And I think that's still, to

23:18

a certain degree, whether it's Starbucks or

23:20

McDonald's, one theory is you increase traffic

23:22

if you do this fairly well. Come

23:24

use the bathroom. Stay for the Big

23:26

Mac. Yep. Yeah, I think

23:28

that that's absolutely still happening. I think

23:30

the problem with that, though, is

23:32

that we see that access when it's

23:35

a private place like that access

23:37

can be curtailed and it can be

23:39

curtailed in a number of different

23:41

ways. And it's not fair on either

23:43

side. You know, so you have

23:45

somebody who is perhaps profoundly. experiencing

23:48

profound homelessness somebody who has not showered

23:50

in a very long time somebody who

23:52

frankly may have soiled themselves and they

23:54

need a bathroom and they are barred

23:56

from coming into a restaurant um that's

23:58

not a good position for that person

24:01

to be in it's not a good

24:03

position for the people working there to

24:05

be in to have to enforce that

24:07

kind of rule if you have a

24:09

public space this you know the quote

24:11

-unquote third space that's a you

24:13

know it is part of the third

24:16

space like a library that's something where

24:18

it's the deal is everybody gets to

24:20

use this no questions asked and you

24:22

know we meet people where they are

24:24

and we deal with it and that's

24:26

the job of that place and i

24:28

think that you know that's that's missing

24:30

quite a bit So this is a

24:32

huge topic here, and we should say

24:35

in your book, there's a really long

24:37

stretch of your book, which takes place

24:39

at Wesleyan University, which is, I don't

24:41

know, 20, 25 minutes maybe from where

24:43

I'm sitting. And

24:45

that's where, unsurprisingly, if you

24:47

know Wesleyan, the whole issue

24:49

of bathrooms for trans people,

24:51

gender nonconforming people, very, very

24:53

quickly came to a head.

24:56

You once again should pardon

24:58

the expression. So

25:01

explain about that. I think what's really

25:03

interesting is kind of where this winds

25:05

up, which is you can't just take

25:07

the conventional bathroom allocation and fix it

25:09

so that it addresses this issue. You

25:11

almost have to rethink the space and

25:13

the function entirely. Yeah.

25:15

I mean, this this was a situation

25:17

this is going back a few years,

25:19

but it was a situation in broad

25:21

strokes where students had been. year

25:24

over year asking for more non

25:26

-binary options or more all gender

25:28

options in terms of bathrooms and

25:30

and students felt that one student

25:32

who I spoke to said you

25:34

know there was this sense that

25:36

because there's student turnover every two

25:38

years or four years or whatever

25:40

that There is a lack of

25:42

impetus on behalf of the university

25:45

to really make change quickly because

25:47

the institutional memory just gets wiped

25:49

in terms of students. And so

25:51

a group of students kind of

25:53

had enough and they decided they

25:55

were going to tear all of

25:57

the gender signs off of the

25:59

bathrooms. And so they

26:01

did that. They just destroyed the signs

26:03

and they did it over, I think

26:06

it was a few days. And it

26:08

was a big problem. Obviously

26:11

for the administration, it

26:13

was a big problem because

26:15

they wanted to keep

26:17

the gendered bathrooms gendered because

26:20

that's how they had

26:22

been designed. But it also

26:24

became a real flashpoint

26:26

for some women on campus

26:28

who felt that they

26:30

were not safe sharing bathrooms

26:32

with men. And

26:34

this is, you know, I say

26:36

in the book, this is... One

26:39

of my sources says, you know,

26:41

you're way more likely if you're

26:43

concerned about sexual assault, you're far

26:45

more likely to be sexually assaulted

26:47

at the party you go to

26:49

later than you are using the,

26:51

you know, the shared gender bathroom

26:53

at the at the college library.

26:55

But, you know, there's a it's

26:57

a real that's a story that

26:59

really highlights how sometimes when we're

27:01

seeking equity and I think. I

27:04

think it's very hard to find

27:06

people who would not argue that

27:08

we should be seeking equity in

27:10

this front. People who are trans

27:12

or non -binary deal with harassment, both

27:14

physical violence, verbal harassment when they

27:17

use bathrooms that match their gender

27:19

expression, and that is a problem

27:21

that needs to be fixed. But

27:23

at the same time, I don't

27:25

think it's okay to just completely

27:27

discount the experiences and the feelings

27:29

of women who are scared so

27:31

that was a an anecdote that

27:34

really really showed that competing bathroom

27:36

issues are are not simple to

27:38

fix they're really really sometimes can

27:40

be at odds and it does

27:42

require as you say this kind

27:44

of wholesale reimagining of the bathrooms

27:46

um and that itself is it's

27:48

far more costly than just ripping

27:51

the signs off Right. I mean,

27:53

and I mean, you throwing the

27:55

doors open doesn't really solve the

27:57

problems of a lot of trans

27:59

people, too. They're going to be

28:01

trans people who don't feel safe

28:03

in the men's room and aren't

28:05

welcome in the women's room. So

28:08

so their problems are not solved either.

28:10

You really are probably looking at a

28:12

situation where you either need the kind

28:14

of single use individual bathroom one at a

28:16

time or a third sign for a

28:18

third kind of bathroom. But anyway, we

28:21

have to stop there. Leslie Lowe teaches journalism

28:23

at the University. of King's College and

28:25

is the author of, and believe me,

28:27

there is plenty more to read. We

28:29

have barely scratched the surface. So she's the

28:31

author of No Place to Go, How

28:33

Public Toilets Fail Our Private Needs. Here

28:35

come some very nice people who've been allowed

28:37

to go to the bathroom before they

28:39

did this, and they are going to

28:41

ask you to support public broadcasting, this

28:43

show in particular. It's always great if you

28:46

give during our time period because then

28:48

people think, oh, this is the thing

28:50

they like, you know? You see what I'm

28:52

saying here? you making this connection? What

29:01

happens when a family lets

29:03

people live in their backyard? This

29:05

is what we set out

29:08

to document two years ago, when

29:10

a group of people experiencing

29:12

homelessness tried to establish a new

29:14

community in one of the

29:16

poorest neighborhoods of New Haven. Watch

29:18

the documentary, Where Then Shall

29:21

We Go? Premiering March 18th on

29:23

CPTV and at Connecticut Public

29:25

on YouTube. Support for Where Then

29:27

Shall We Go is provided

29:29

by Connecticut Housing Partners. Hi,

29:31

this is Colin McEnroe. You're listening to

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right, we are back. Time for me to

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say some thank yous. Kat Pastor is the technical

30:29

producer of this show. She is there behind

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it depends on your perspective. There's glass separating

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us. That's the key part. And

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there you go. Those are the thank

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if you have taken this time to

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support this radio station, support this show.

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That's a whole other set of things.

30:58

All right. Because you'd want to support

31:00

a show that did a thing

31:02

about public toilets. Joining us now is

31:04

Evan Madden, the sales manager for

31:06

the Portland Lou. It's spelled exactly like

31:08

the Portland Zoo except for an

31:10

L instead of the Z. But

31:13

you would have very different experiences depending on which

31:15

one you went to. Evan Madden,

31:17

thank you so much for joining us. Oh,

31:19

yeah. Thank you for the introduction. And

31:22

yes, the Portland Lou is certainly

31:24

much different than the Portland Zoo. Don't get

31:26

those confused. Although there's defecation

31:28

taking place in both locales. So

31:30

maybe let's begin. When we think about

31:32

this kind of thing and we're

31:34

not thinking about a porta potty, we're

31:36

talking about a really kind of

31:38

a highly designed public facility. And,

31:40

you know, after Nicholas Kristof wrote his column

31:43

in the New York Times, there are a whole

31:45

bunch of letters. And I read one from

31:47

a person from nearby Seattle who seemed to be

31:49

saying, oh, we did something. We did a

31:51

thing that was like this and it didn't work.

31:53

And there was vandalism. Maybe

31:56

we can begin by saying you probably

31:58

were looking down the road at Seattle and

32:00

trying to figure out what went wrong

32:02

and how you could avoid having that go

32:04

wrong. Can you sort of fill in

32:06

the spaces of that a little bit first?

32:09

Oh, yeah, exactly. Really, the Portland

32:11

Lou restroom that I manufacture and

32:13

sell really has a lot of

32:15

roots from Seattle. Being that Seattle

32:17

was using a really popular restroom

32:20

called the Automatic Public Toilet. It

32:22

was made overseas in Germany, I

32:24

believe. And it was a high

32:26

tech fancy toilet for a pretty

32:28

high tech city like Seattle. And

32:30

this restroom was meant to solve

32:33

a lot of problems, but ultimately

32:35

kind of created more problems than

32:37

it was trying to solve. And

32:39

what I mean is it had

32:41

too much enclosed privacy that allowed

32:43

for drug use and prostitution to

32:46

kind of flourish. And then it

32:48

had pay to use options. So

32:50

you couldn't use the restroom without

32:52

paying a small fee for it.

32:54

which eliminated a crowd or a

32:56

population of people that relies on

32:59

these public restrooms. And then it

33:01

had moving parts and features that

33:03

were easily vandalized and could be

33:05

broken and then were costly to

33:07

repair. So this restroom was just

33:09

overcomplicated and making user features that

33:12

kind of created more problems for

33:14

the people that had to maintain

33:16

and supervise this restroom that was

33:18

installed. Alone, the restroom

33:20

was about a million dollars to

33:22

purchase and install, too. So the cost

33:24

was very high for these restrooms

33:26

as well. Right. So what you want

33:28

is a vandalism -proof enclosure that's comfortable

33:30

but not so comfortable that people

33:32

want to stay there longer than it

33:34

takes for them to do their

33:36

business and also not so private that

33:38

people can do other kinds of

33:40

business. So how did you arrive at

33:43

that? How did you – I

33:45

don't know. Can you describe where that

33:47

sweet spot is? Oh, certainly.

33:49

Well, I wasn't involved in this

33:51

process and thankfully I wasn't because I'm

33:53

sure it was a hard time

33:55

to do, but really it involved the

33:57

police and fire departments and then

33:59

the parks maintenance staff and then getting

34:01

everyone that would have to engage

34:03

in the restroom after it was installed,

34:05

making sure they got the durability

34:07

they wanted out of it. And really

34:09

what we push for is almost

34:11

like a prison grade. structure

34:14

so imagine anyone 24 7 365

34:16

should be able to like pick up

34:18

this restroom and walk away undefeated

34:20

for how how strong and durable this

34:22

is and nothing can be ripped

34:24

off nothing um gets uh destroyed other

34:26

than like scratching of the restroom

34:28

that i really can't defend too much

34:30

and then also like smashing of

34:32

like the flush handle and door handles

34:34

of the restroom but really the

34:37

restroom is nearly bullet or bat proof

34:39

that it is very strong and

34:41

durable and then just kind of eliminating

34:43

You know, complete privacy is how you're

34:45

able to allow this to be

34:48

unmonitored in the public. And it's creating

34:50

a place that you don't feel

34:52

safe, that you can either live in

34:54

or do unwanted behaviors in, that

34:56

this kind of semi -private space doesn't

34:58

allow that kind of behavior to happen.

35:00

I'm sure it does, but not

35:02

in the same way that other restrooms

35:04

would. Do I have it right

35:06

that one thing that happens here is

35:08

you wash your hands on the outside of

35:10

the enclosure? Yeah, correct.

35:12

And that's a way to generate higher

35:15

usage rates and it eliminates something

35:17

called the hotel effect. It's trying to

35:19

eliminate all the comforts of a

35:21

home or a dwelling inside this unit

35:23

and they kind of separate them

35:25

apart. So while they're all still there

35:27

together, the behavior of how you

35:29

use them is different and benefits more

35:32

of the people that have to

35:34

want to have higher usage rates for

35:36

this restroom too, making sure it's

35:38

always available. So the way this works

35:40

and the way that it's going

35:42

to work, and this is really where

35:44

you do come in in a

35:46

significant way, is that not just Portland,

35:48

but other municipalities are going to

35:51

buy these things or contract, I guess,

35:53

for these things. So how's that

35:55

going? It's going

35:57

well. And to speak on the design

35:59

and how good it is, I'm

36:01

always looking to improve things and make

36:03

it better. you know one

36:05

of the things is just being the

36:07

door lock that's what i want to improve

36:09

so when this restroom does get to

36:11

new cities it's fun to see the first

36:13

one that's just down the street from

36:15

where we manufacture them to you know where

36:17

they'll go across the country and know

36:19

that we're building these so much better all

36:21

the time and that each city gets

36:23

to benefit from portland's design so i have

36:25

them from all across the country in

36:27

the u .s to in canada as well

36:29

quite a few um probably close to 15

36:31

in canada and one as far as

36:33

way as dunedin new zealand where they have

36:35

the world's steepest street and Baldwin Street

36:37

and having a tourist attraction or destination without

36:39

having a building or facility for this,

36:42

they kind of needed a restroom to have

36:44

something there at this destination. So

36:46

when municipalities are trying to make

36:48

a decision about whether to do

36:50

this, what are the tipping points?

36:53

I mean, obviously, this is going

36:55

to cost some money and municipalities

36:57

always feel like they don't have

36:59

any money for anything. So

37:01

how does the

37:03

persuasion work? Typically,

37:09

it's either replacing an existing facility that's

37:11

just too costly to maintain. And that's

37:13

a pretty easy decision to replace it

37:15

with a Portland Louvre. But I think

37:17

what you're referring to is like when

37:20

people have no restrooms available in downtown.

37:22

And that's where the Louvre really kind

37:24

of exists in a market that doesn't

37:26

have any competition because a restroom that's

37:28

designed really not for the user, but

37:30

for the people that have to maintain

37:32

it, supervise it. That's what makes this

37:35

restroom so... an easier decision to add

37:37

to a city where you know it's

37:39

going to be unsupervised a lot of

37:41

the time. It's going to be messy,

37:43

but making sure it's easy to clean

37:45

is going to be to your benefit.

37:47

So when the restroom is so durable

37:50

and unlike any traditional restrooms, I think

37:52

that really helps sell the idea of,

37:54

you know, if we're going to have

37:56

a restroom in downtown, this is what

37:58

we want. And having a city of

38:00

Portland implementing eight in our downtown area

38:02

and continuing to add more. And

38:05

there was a great kind of proof

38:07

of concept. Cities are talking to each other

38:09

and looking to learn from how to

38:11

solve the same problems that other cities are.

38:13

So to have Portland work with us,

38:15

the manufacturer, and their design to improve it

38:17

and make it better, we both benefit

38:19

in all that. So it's really fun to

38:21

kind of have a product that is

38:23

never the same. It's always evolving to be

38:25

better. And I get to work with

38:27

cities to make a restroom that's specific for

38:29

them. And it's not always just the

38:31

Portland Lou when it arrives somewhere. It

38:33

becomes that city or that street blue

38:35

and kind of has features that really make

38:37

it benefit where they go. I'm going

38:39

to ask you a question about that in

38:41

just a second, but I think it's

38:43

worth kind of doubling down on what you're

38:45

saying. I mean, there's a term that

38:47

comes up a lot in urban planning and

38:49

lots of other places, quality of life.

38:52

And, you know, when you say quality of

38:54

life, where you poop and pee isn't

38:56

necessarily the first thing you think of. But

38:58

if you. If you don't have a

39:00

place to poop and pee or if you've

39:02

got Amazon drivers, you know, peeing in

39:04

water bottles and throwing them out the window

39:06

or, you know, I mean, it's not

39:08

hard for quality of life to deteriorate if

39:10

you don't do something like this well.

39:12

So I would imagine that, you know, those

39:14

people who are urban planners, those people

39:16

who are decision makers and thought leaders in

39:18

any community can come around to this

39:20

pretty quickly. Exactly. And

39:22

then that's. I feel

39:24

the exact same way. And kind of

39:26

when I talk to people about what

39:28

I do for a living, the criticism

39:30

is often it's unnecessary. You

39:33

know, we shouldn't be providing these to

39:35

homeless to make their lives easier. And my

39:37

thought is you're not going to make

39:39

their lives really easier or better. You're really

39:41

going to make everyone live better together.

39:43

The less we encounter human waste and feces

39:45

on streets, we're all going to improve

39:47

our quality of life. You know, costs of.

39:50

you know health care costs will be

39:53

down if we can all live

39:55

at a better quality of life that

39:57

we're not sharing diseases and encountering

39:59

these kind of waste it's the best

40:01

way to go and um being

40:03

that it's not just for the homeless

40:05

is absolutely important too these restrooms

40:07

are best cited in a way that

40:09

are inviting and used by everyone

40:11

and that also helps citing this restroom

40:13

and having a successful installation is

40:15

how you look uh to cite this

40:17

restroom with septed principles is what

40:19

i talk about it's crime prevention through

40:21

environmental design and it really creates

40:24

an area that has open sight lines

40:26

and visibility and then kind of

40:28

create behaviors in a way that you

40:30

engineer the problems out of the

40:32

space and it's always like continuously improving

40:34

it but there's never a set

40:36

guideline for it but there's certain ideas

40:38

to adhere to to help installations

40:40

go quicker or better. Right. So, I

40:42

mean, obviously your thing always has

40:44

to be ADA compliant. But

40:46

what you're saying in terms of the different municipalities,

40:48

I assume like how hard the toilet paper

40:50

dispenser has to be or something like that, it's

40:53

going to vary from place to place. Sometimes

40:55

it does. It's

40:58

always a shock to learn that

41:00

it varies slightly in each

41:02

city and state thinking it should

41:04

be the same. But

41:06

again, I don't. I don't want to have to

41:08

decide. I just want to build the best restroom that's

41:10

going to be, you know, to

41:13

manufacture things while you want everything to

41:15

be the same. And certainly most of it

41:17

is, but there's certain variances where it

41:19

does come across where it's different in some

41:21

cities. But we are able

41:23

to kind of create restrooms that are

41:25

not just for the downtown areas that

41:27

are really focused on kind of, you

41:29

know, tough neighborhoods or, you know, ugly

41:32

locations, you know, that have drug use

41:34

kind of problems is what I'm referring

41:36

to. We also have them in nice.

41:38

parks and places where kids and families

41:40

go near water fountains and that's where

41:42

we have features like a sharps container

41:44

versus a baby changing table and i

41:46

often refer that if you're getting a

41:49

sharps container you probably don't want a

41:51

baby changing station because the area is

41:53

just going to be different but it's

41:55

kind of important to consider what kind

41:57

of types of people will be using

41:59

this much as possible and doing that

42:01

sort of thing so we are able

42:03

to put the restroom in very cold

42:05

and snowy conditions being that uh my

42:07

coldest is probably in smithers canada in

42:09

northern bc canada and then also have

42:11

my southern california to miami installations that

42:13

are able to be in warm weather

42:15

and high storms um i have a

42:18

hurricane rated restroom in miami and uh

42:20

20 negative 24 rated restroom up in

42:22

northern canada so um These

42:24

restrooms are needed everywhere at all times.

42:26

So in the dead of winter, I have

42:28

close to four feet of snow around

42:30

my Smithers location and probably, you know,

42:32

people in bikinis and flip -flops using my

42:34

restroom in Miami. So it's, you know,

42:36

everyone will need to use this restroom and

42:38

kind of having them at beaches and

42:40

other places. A great idea

42:42

as well. All right. Evan Madden. We're going

42:45

to have to stop there. But Evan Madden is

42:47

the sales manager for the Portland Lou. Get

42:49

one for Hartford. Get one for New Haven. Maybe

42:51

they have one. I don't think they do,

42:53

though. All right. So once again, I'm going to

42:55

say some people are going to come on,

42:57

I think, for like three minutes and ask if

42:59

you would be willing to support public radio.

43:01

If you say yes. during our little time slot

43:03

here. It's a good thing for us. It

43:05

doesn't hurt anyway, right? It's better than a poke

43:08

in the eye with a sharp stick, as

43:10

my father used to say. So

43:12

please do it. Please do

43:14

support us, support the station,

43:16

but very specifically support our

43:18

show by pledging during our

43:21

show. Don't make me beg.