Revisiting "Pissoirs for the People" -- or, will there be public restrooms in the new luxury Reisz complex, and if so, how much will Team Gahan charge us to use them?

The main text originally was posted on July 8, 2018; the bit at the end first appeared here on December 26, 2018. 

Current county councilman, city resident, regular reader and all-around good guy Dale Bagshaw posed an excellent question yesterday on social media.

Does anyone wonder why New Albany does not have any public restrooms in the downtown? The city is being reborn and we want people to walk, shop and dine downtown. The city council talked about restrooms in the farmers market expansion but took them out of the plan because of cost and purchased a restroom trailer. However, I drove by on Pearl Street today about 2:00 p.m. and it was gone. My wife and I go to other towns like Corydon, Madison and Nashville IN. They have public restrooms. Why not us? Just a thought -- think the city could put public restrooms in the new city hall, maybe?

Yes, the city might install public restrooms in the new luxury city hall, and there's one thing we know for sure: they'd be PAY toilets, with the credit card swipes plumbed directly to Jeff Gahan's re-enthronement account.

Nickels and dimes, people. Nickels and dimes.

Here's a reprise of NAC's public restroom coverage from 2016, because while Da 'Bune has two religion columnists, you don't see the newspaper tackling public pissoirs for the people, do you?

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Not the late and lamented pissoir, but Germany has an idea to provide more public restrooms.

It's been a couple of years since public toilet mania in New Albany.

As April comes to an end, a reminder that public toilets are not dead.

A ringside seat for New Albany's new slogan: "Truck Through City" ... Part Twelve.

Meanwhile, Germany's doing something about it ...

Germany Found a Cheap Way to Fix Its Lack of Public Restrooms, by Feargus O'Sullivan (City Lab)

Welcome to the “Nice Toilet.”

... In Germany, it looks like there may be one that really works. The country’s Nette Toilette (“Nice Toilet”) system has created a compromise between public and private restrooms that makes such obvious sense it’s hard to believe that other countries aren’t doing it already too. It works like this. German cities pay businesses a monthly fee of anything from €30 to €100 ($33 to $110) a month to open up their restrooms for the general public. These businesses then put a sticker in their window to let the public know they’re welcome to use the facilities even if they’re not buying. First launched in 2000 and now including 210 member cities (including some in Switzerland), the network is a private one that charges participating cities a modest fee to use their branding. Sixteen years in, it’s still on a roll. At the end of October, the network announced that it is expanding to Munich, which will be its largest urban area yet.

 ... as is our nation's capital.

Public restrooms are another beneficial project neither Jeff Gahan nor Develop New Albany is likely to pursue.

... Finding a hygienic and accessible restroom on the street is a necessity for many, including homeless residents, seniors, and pregnant women—and a challenge in many U.S. cities, not just D.C. But a nationwide movement is building to create “more spaces for people to do private things,” as Alexandra Goldman, a community organizer in San Francisco, told CityLab. And now—years after D.C.’s bathroom committee conducted their first informal survey of publicly accessible private space—the city has taken the most sweeping action in the nation so far, passing the first Public Restroom bill of its kind.

Public restrooms are another beneficial project neither Jeff Gahan nor Develop New Albany is likely to pursue.

Public bathrooms just aren't luxurious enough for the appearance-over-substance suburbanites calling the shots at NA Anchor Central. They understand so very little about an outside world they've seldom experienced.

The only surprising aspect of their ignorance?

Surely a $100K public restroom study for a project destined to be scrapped would be the perfect stocking stuffer for HWC Engineering.

D.C.’s Downtown Was a Public Bathroom Desert. That Could Soon Change, by Sarah Holder (CityLab)

Homeless activists pushed Washington D.C. to pass expansive public restroom legislation. Now the city is moving to increase toilet access for the public.

 ... Finding a hygienic and accessible restroom on the street is a necessity for many, including homeless residents, seniors, and pregnant women—and a challenge in many U.S. cities, not just D.C. But a nationwide movement is building to create “more spaces for people to do private things,” as Alexandra Goldman, a community organizer in San Francisco, told CityLab. And now—years after D.C.’s bathroom committee conducted their first informal survey of publicly accessible private space—the city has taken the most sweeping action in the nation so far, passing the first Public Restroom bill of its kind.

The legislation builds on years of other urban toilet expansion efforts. Portland, Oregon, pioneered the Portland Loo, a 24/7 stand-alone public restroom design that has since spread to 20 other U.S. locations. San Francisco, where 311 complaints regarding feces on the streets have peaked, installed a fleet of portable public bathrooms called Pit Stops in strategic locations; an alternative to the more controversial self-cleaning Automated Public Toilets (APTs) that it and other cities also use. And while pay toilets are banned in many U.S. cities because of their discriminatory implications, New York State created an exemption to the rule for New York City, where need is high and few free public toilets are installed ...

Pissoirs for the People -- or, will there be public restrooms in the new luxury Reisz complex?

Current county councilman, city resident, regular reader and all-around good guy Dale Bagshaw posed an excellent question yesterday on social media.

Does anyone wonder why New Albany does not have any public restrooms in the downtown? The city is being reborn and we want people to walk, shop and dine downtown. The city council talked about restrooms in the farmers market expansion but took them out of the plan because of cost and purchased a restroom trailer. However, I drove by on Pearl Street today about 2:00 p.m. and it was gone. My wife and I go to other towns like Corydon, Madison and Nashville IN. They have public restrooms. Why not us? Just a thought -- think the city could put public restrooms in the new city hall, maybe?

Yes, the city might install public restrooms in the new luxury city hall, and there's one thing we know for sure: they'd be PAY toilets, with the credit card swipes plumbed directly to Jeff Gahan's re-enthronement account.

Nickels and dimes, people. Nickels and dimes.

Here's a reprise of NAC's public restroom coverage from 2016, because while Da 'Bune has two religion columnists, you don't see the newspaper tackling public pissoirs for the people, do you?

---

Not the late and lamented pissoir, but Germany has an idea to provide more public restrooms.

It's been a couple of years since public toilet mania in New Albany.

As April comes to an end, a reminder that public toilets are not dead.

A ringside seat for New Albany's new slogan: "Truck Through City" ... Part Twelve.

Meanwhile, Germany's doing something about it.

Germany Found a Cheap Way to Fix Its Lack of Public Restrooms, by Feargus O'Sullivan (City Lab)

Welcome to the “Nice Toilet.”

... In Germany, it looks like there may be one that really works. The country’s Nette Toilette (“Nice Toilet”) system has created a compromise between public and private restrooms that makes such obvious sense it’s hard to believe that other countries aren’t doing it already too. It works like this. German cities pay businesses a monthly fee of anything from €30 to €100 ($33 to $110) a month to open up their restrooms for the general public. These businesses then put a sticker in their window to let the public know they’re welcome to use the facilities even if they’re not buying. First launched in 2000 and now including 210 member cities (including some in Switzerland), the network is a private one that charges participating cities a modest fee to use their branding. Sixteen years in, it’s still on a roll. At the end of October, the network announced that it is expanding to Munich, which will be its largest urban area yet.

Not the late and lamented pissoir, but Germany has an idea to provide more public restrooms.

It's been a couple of years since public toilet mania in New Albany.

As April comes to an end, a reminder that public toilets are not dead.

A ringside seat for New Albany's new slogan: "Truck Through City" ... Part Twelve.

Meanwhile, Germany's doing something about it.

Germany Found a Cheap Way to Fix Its Lack of Public Restrooms, by Feargus O'Sullivan (City Lab)

Welcome to the “Nice Toilet.”

... In Germany, it looks like there may be one that really works. The country’s Nette Toilette (“Nice Toilet”) system has created a compromise between public and private restrooms that makes such obvious sense it’s hard to believe that other countries aren’t doing it already too. It works like this. German cities pay businesses a monthly fee of anything from €30 to €100 ($33 to $110) a month to open up their restrooms for the general public. These businesses then put a sticker in their window to let the public know they’re welcome to use the facilities even if they’re not buying. First launched in 2000 and now including 210 member cities (including some in Switzerland), the network is a private one that charges participating cities a modest fee to use their branding. Sixteen years in, it’s still on a roll. At the end of October, the network announced that it is expanding to Munich, which will be its largest urban area yet.

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Unisex.

Welcome to another installment of SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS, a regular Wednesday feature at NA Confidential.

But why new words? Why not the old, familiar, comforting words?

It's because a healthy vocabulary isn't about trying to show Trump-ers and Trump-ets that you're brighter than them. To the contrary, it's about selecting the right word and using it correctly, whatever one's pay grade or station in life.

Even municipal corporate attorneys are eligible for this enlightening expansion of personal horizons, and really, for those of us who want nothing more than to be able to cross the street without being mowed down by a motorist, all we have is time -- and the opportunity to learn something.

You may have seen this image on Facebook. It's from a Kroger store in Athens, Georgia, and has been shared 112,000 times.

Judging from some of the responses, it seems that a great many people are not aware of what "unisex" means.

Unisex

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Unisex refers to things that are not gender-specific, being suitable for any gender,^[1][2] but can also be another term for gender-blindness.

The term was coined in the 1960s and was used fairly informally. Though the combining form uni- is from the Latin unus meaning one, the term seems to have been influenced by words such as united and universal where the uni- prefix takes on the sense of shared. In this sense, it can be seen as meaning shared by both sexes.^[3]

You no longer have an excuse, Dan.

Shout it out loud: "Peeing Is Not a Crime."

If urban density is the goal, and walkability a means to an end ... if folks are going to be roaming around outside ...

Not only that, but we continue felling mature trees. You just can't stand behind those saplings.

Peeing Is Not a Crime: Don't waste money policing public urinators—invest in public restrooms instead. , by Daniel Denvir (City Lab)

New York City officials are considering downgrading public urination to a mere violation instead of a misdemeanor offense, in an effort to roll back excessive broken-windows policing. Reducing criminal penalties, however, fails to address the root of the peeing in public problem.

That would be the lack of public places to pee.

Citing people for public urination criminalizes someone for doing something that society, the state and the market effectively encourages by making public restrooms scarce. That's a hallmark of broken windows policing: punish low-level crimes that are born of necessity or, sometimes, just understandable convenience—including people hustling to sell loosies, drinking on stoops instead of at a pricy cafe's outdoor seating and, yes, those who pee where they must because there is a woeful dearth of places to urinate lawfully.

People who pee outside often would prefer to pee inside. Anecdotally speaking. The number of public restrooms, however, is insufficient in many places.