Since we’re sort of on the topic of bike parking, I thought I’d share an experience I had this morning in the Pearl District.
I had at meeting at Sisters Coffee on the corner of NW Marshall and 13th. It was raining and in the high-30s (pretty tough riding weather) so I dressed up for the ride. I had my parka, a cozy and waterproof hat, and a cool new pair of rain paints from Rains. I do not like to make a “Look at me! The wet and weird cyclist!” type of scene when I enter a business or a meeting, so I left my house early and looked for a place to park where I could get dry, do a costume change, and get composed before I got down to business.
As I rode up the smooth bike lane on NW Marshall (that PBOT flattened just for bikes on a cobble-stoned street!), I remembered the story I did five years ago about a covered bike parking spot. To my pleasant surprise, this parking area was located just across the street from the coffee place. This gave me a perfect place to re-organize myself and get ready for the meeting. (I also loved having a lockable front bin* to stash my wet rain paints, gloves, and hat instead of bringing it into the meeting.)
Well, I should say, it was almost perfect. Unfortunately it reeked terribly from human pee. The smell reminded me of the controversy around this bike parking area: the building owner initially tried to put it behind a locked gate to protect it from vandals and people trying to sleep there, and to make it for building residents only. Thankfully someone complained about how the gate was a city code violation and it’s now been completely removed so folks like me can find a dry place to park my bike while doing business nearby.
The takeaway: Open and accessible bike parking is always better than putting it behind a gate; and a covered bike parking spot that reeks of piss is still 100 times better than a nice-smelling spot that’s exposed to the rain. Oh, and downtown Portland needs more public restrooms.
Hope you’re doing OK in this cold and wet weather. Hang in there. It will get better!
*Bike is a Riese & Muller Carrie I’m trying out from Splendid Cycles.
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Seriously. I watched a YouTube video about the topic of public restrooms in the US a few months back and it really stuck with me. I really hate bathroom codes and other ways that businesses restrict bathroom access. It’d be nice to see some movement towards requiring any public facing business to have a publicly accessible restroom.
I understand the hesitation I’ve worked cleaning bathrooms before and really do not envy the workers – but bathrooms are a basic human need. Restricting bathroom access just leads to more desperation and worse outcomes for everyone (like pee soaked bike parking and the like).
The problem for businesses is not a homeless person needing normal use of a bathroom. The problem is drug addicts and people with serious mental illness using that space for shooting up, smoking, sexual activities, or sleeping. Want to kill that business? It will only take a few Yelp reviews or a local news article about someone’s kid finding a used syringe/foil or a woman walking in on a self-pleasuring tweaker before traffic drops and that coffee shop or boutique is forced to close.
No local proprietor or corporation wants this to happen in their establishment. Your heart is in the right place, but we are increasingly dealing with people that are not in their right minds.
Where is the city or the county on this issue? Oh, that’s right! Probably in the middle of a multi-year long feasibility, diversity, equity, and environmental impact study before spending another year to select a preferred crony contractor to build and maintain the new $20 million public toilet test facility. Isn’t it funny how a 5K fun run or a beer festival has no problems putting up large banks of porta-potties but our civic leadership can’t figure that out as an interim solution?
Many good points here, but your last one – about porta-potties – is 80% correct. The city has tried to provide them but people just destroy them – sometimes in one day. And it’s not just crazed addicts who destroy them: local residents think porta-potties “attract” homeless people and also try to render them unusable.
Your main point is a great one, however: we as a city cannot turn a blind eye to homelessness, as if it’s some benign situation. EVERYTHING in a city needs to be managed, or else it all falls apart.
Ah, Portland’s covered bike parking—keeping you dry but serving up that signature Eau de Alleyway No. 5. Sure, it beats parking in the rain, but maybe we can aim a little higher than ‘not soaked but holding your breath.’
And on the public restroom front, yeah, they’re a basic human need, but let’s not forget the Portland Porta-Potty Experiment. The city spent hundreds of thousands on those things, and what did we get? Vandalized, tagged, burned, and turned into unofficial drug dens. Absolute masterpieces of public failure.
We need real solutions, like those durable, self-cleaning restrooms you see in Europe. Yes, they’re pricey, but they actually work and don’t double as bonfire pits or health hazards. But let’s be honest—if we want nice things like Europe, we’ve got to solve the unsanctioned camping problem first. It’s hard to keep public spaces clean and functional when they’re treated like permanent housing.
Forcing small businesses to open their bathrooms isn’t the answer—it’s just shifting the problem to baristas and shop clerks who already have enough on their plates. Let’s focus on real investments and tackling the root issues, so we can all lock up our bikes without gagging and actually enjoy clean, usable public restrooms.”
In Europe.
We do have a few, and I have no idea how well they’ve been holding up, how much use they get, etc.
What Europe also has, attached to the paid units, are free open-air pissoirs (for men). Not many dudes are going to pay $1 (or whatever Portland Loos charge) when there is a tree or bike parking shelter nearby. It’s a very cheap, highly practical addition (minimally, a side of the shelter with a gutter below it leading to a pipe connected to the shelter’s sewage outflow, but would never fly here because we’re too prudish and it would be considered discriminatory.
They’ve always been free to use.
Hey, you’re right! They’re usually paid in Europe, and I assumed they were here as well.
That’s part of the problem.
I was on the citizens advisory committee many years ago that helped to advocate for the Portland Loos. Far fewer than the suggested number (originally 25 to 30) were installed, due to the cost of construction and maintenance. Of the original units installed downtown, a couple were completely destroyed by vandalism (which in one case included toilets plugged with quick-dry cement) within the first two years of operation. Maintenance on the remaining units has been inconsistent, probably owning to a combination of budget cuts and the pandemic.
Before the pandemic, when my trips downtown were far more frequent, I tried to use the Portland Loos and about half the time they were inaccessible because someone was sleeping or doing drugs in them. I was warned more than once by whomever was inside “just go somewhere else, you’re not gonna get in here anytime soon.”
The last time I needed to use one downtown was in June during the Bike Summer kickoff party. The closest one was chained shut due to extensive vandalism damage, and I had to ride until I found a temporary porta-potty eight blocks away.
I volunteered to be on that advisory committee because, as someone with Crohn’s disease, I can’t always predict when I’ll need to find a restroom. I figured there might be others with similar needs. In the end, it hasn’t really mattered.
Today, I only go downtown if I absolutely must, and I take public transit.
I’m older and slower now, and there’s no point in putting myself in harm’s way if I don’t have to. When a place — a street, a bike lane, or a public restroom — isn’t safe enough for the most vulnerable, then it’s not really safe.
Wow. This comment is kind of a sad symbol of Portland’s last decade. 🙁
I’m sorry I can only “thumbs up” your comment once. It’s excellent! My partner also has Crohn’s and our outings and meal preparations are as you might imagine planned out and timed and it is really stressful when restrooms are unavailable, too far away or filthy. We are getting older and any together trips to Portland are rarely to the downtown blocks due to the reasons you have discussed.
It is so hard to understand that when I hear people discuss the most vulnerable they are referring to the young, drug addled people (mostly males) instead of the actual vulnerable in society.
Like, where? I’ve traveled extensively in Germany, the UK and the Netherlands and have yet to run across one of these marvels.
Far more common is a bathroom that has an attendant on duty to tidy up and report any problems. And here’s the thing that will really upset the homeless(ness) advocates: these public toilets are usually paid facilities. Yes, there’s a turnstile with a coin collector (contactless sometimes accepted)… and if you bypass the gate, alarms sound and the authorities are notified.
From what I’ve seen, the system works great.
It simply is not my experience that even the sight (much less smell) of pee and worse goes away just because there are bathrooms nearby. The same goes for litter and trash cans.
I say this because I can see both public resources from my sidewalk, where I am picking up litter after flinging my elderly neighbors’ copy of The Oregonian from the bushes onto their porch four days a week.
People just don’t seem to be housebroken anymore.
Can we just get cheap and simple outdoor urinals already?! Wash yer hands in a Benson bubbler, God knows they’ve seen worse!
Because as we all know, only men have to pee. And they only need to pee.
A solution like this frees up more conventional facilities for women — they won’t need to share as much with men.
Won’t someone please think of the children who might be traumatized by a scene like this? And what about women?
In America, solving half the problem is considered worse than solving none at all.
I’m not sure that urinals as depicted are the right solution, and agree they leave out people that need or want to sit to pee. Is seeing people pee really traumatizing for children though? Everybody does it….
Sorry, that was intended to be sarcastic. But I do believe that would be an objection.
Gosh – now I realize I’ve been doing it wrong.
Haha. No that’s all fine and good. I have just always had this thing of not wanting people to know I’m a “bike guy” when I roll up to something. Part of that is because, from a journalism perspective, once people know I’m a “bike guy” it can change what they say to me.
Also, if it’s really raining, you can be really wet. I don’t like walking into a place and leaving puddles where I go.
I totally relate to and respect this. In my professional life I have found it colors people’s perception of me when I have clearly arrived by bike or bus. I get either pity, disdain, or disdain disguised as pity.
Weird–the smell isn’t a top problem even though it’s a Number One issue.
Short-term bike parking needs rain and sun protection but more transparency. Rack materials need 5-min cutting resistance. Busy areas need public bike rooms . Cafes and restaurants and similar public establishments need foyers. Public restrooms need attendants (robots, ideally) San Francisco has self-cleaning toilets in a few places. A good rain parka and tightly woven wool trousers work pretty well in rain.
Neat bike, would love to see a review