Please nominate comments by replying with “comment of the week” or “COTW” so I can more easily find them via search. Thank you.
We had another great week of comments. It makes me so extremely happy that after all these years we still have a solid comment section that is often just as illuminating — if not more so! — than the stories we share above them. When most media outlets gave up on comments, I doubled-down. And it has paid off. Nearly 600,000 comments later we have a platform where (almost) all perspectives can be shared, where we can learn from each other, and where respect is earned by the value of your ideas and how you choose to express them. Thank you.
With that, let’s get to the Comment of the Week.
We are making progress in bringing downtown Portland back, but we need to do more. And no matter what city leaders do, people won’t hang out downtown if there’s nowhere to relieve themselves. Yes I’m talking about public restroom! I hoped at least one candidate would run on a “more bathrooms downtown!” pledge, but it didn’t happen. This is a huge issue that we must address.
The topic came up in the comments of my story about a recent trip to the Pearl District where a nice bike parking area had been besmirched by human pee. Reader Beth H. had a response that deserves more attention. Read Beth’s comment below:
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.
I feel your pain Beth H.! This is a major issue that isn’t getting enough attention. Hopefully we can make progress soon, so that more folks can feel relaxed and relieved while spending time downtown. Thanks for all the great comments last week. And remember to please nominate good ones by replying to them with “comment of the week” or “COTW.”
Thanks for reading.
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***Hi Angus. I’ve deleted your comment because it’s so off-topic and is clearly another example of how you take every single post and bend it into your agenda. It’s not that I don’t want folks hearing your perspective, it’s that your incessant adherence to that same narrative pushes out other voices in a way that makes it less welcoming for other commenters. Please reconsider your approach in the future. Again, feel free to share your concerns, just find a different way to do it. Thanks. – Jonathan Maus***
Jonathan, I’m guessing you deleted his comment because it doesn’t agree with your narrative not because it was intolerant, offensive or a personal attack. It sure seems to me that though you say you have an “open mind” it often appears that you censor and/or negatively respond to comments that don’t follow the progressive “party line”.
Hi Mary S. You guessed wrong. I am not a party line type of guy.
The vandalism is a big problem, and I’m not sure on the solution. Considering that they are made to be more resilient (at great expense), I’ve seen some pretty shocking damage to our Portland Loos.
Just seems like another negative consequence of the unchecked mental illness we allow on our streets.
Thanks Beth for your work and another great comment. I’ve benefited from the loos and it’s a shame we didn’t have a better result from that investment.
I happen to know that the marginal value of bathroom access for me is at least $7.00 because I’ve spent that in a cafe more than once. I like a cafe as much as anybody but maybe I wouldn’t have gone there otherwise.
I haven’t tried to figure out why some public park restrooms are closed seasonally and some are not. I guess if there is some issue we just shut it down. I’ve traveled with people who frequently need a restroom and it’s a serious problem. The lack of public restrooms around Trimet stations and transfers is also a problem for a lot of people.
Yeah, among others that includes toddlers! They’re not very reliable when they say they don’t have to go potty before heading out. It pisses me off to no end that they close the bathrooms seasonally. As if people don’t go to the parks all year. Despite the cold and lack of bathrooms, there are always kids playing in the park, and at least once we’ve had to practice peeing in the bushes because of this negligence by the city.
If it helps with the toddler potty situation, Parks publishes a list of those that have year round bathrooms. https://www.portland.gov/parks/bathrooms
I ride around to parks all over town with my kiddo. In the winter I tend to be a little less exploratory, and will prioritize parks that I know have a year-round bathroom. I’ve also never been turned away from using the bathrooms at the Peninsula Park Community Center. Doesn’t necessarily help the downtown situation, just friendly advice from one parent to another.
Maybe it’s time to realize that having all of our eggs in a Downtown above all else Basket is not a great way to run a City.
We need to stop propping up the rich downtown landowners and start planning for services to be, shudder, in the outlying areas (not downtown). Rental bikes should have been City wide, not just downtown. Potties should be everywhere, not just downtown. Benson Bubblers should have been all over, not just a few blocks downtown.
The list could go on and on.
Full disclosure, my work is in Old Town, and I avoid downtown at all costs as I find I can do and go just about anywhere I want, outside of downtown as crazy as that is.
Benson Bubblers exist where they do primarily because of the time that they were installed, mostly around the completion of the Bull Run related water works in the 1890s. They aren’t exclusively downtown (there’s one on the corner of SE Powell and Milwaukie), but they are almost exclusively in the area that was urbanized in the late 1800s.
I agree in principle though – we should have amenities in all parts of the city
There are benson bubblers on SE Woodstock. They are not ubiquitous, but you might be surprised about their location…. and their use… sometimes. But I’m not gonna go there. Anyway, here’s the link to find a bubbler. My vote for the weirdest location is the Plaid Pantry on Foster.
That’s not a map of Benson Bubblers. It’s a map of fountains that people call B.B.
When we plan for community bike rides, we actually map out where we know are clean easy-to-access free restrooms, both those at certain public parks and those at private businesses. This becomes particularly important when we (frequently) have older riders (which I’m one) who sometimes need to use restrooms more frequently. We also map out ice cream businesses, but then this is the subtropical Deep South.
On the other hand, I have met many female riders who have no qualms at all taking care of business behind a tree (as well as several male riders who insist on public restrooms.) I did meet an older rider, an African-American in his 70s with a really nice racing bike and cycling suit, who carried a small hard-plastic urinal with him, and discretely took pit stops as needed during longer rides – I’ve seen the plastic urinals at various drug stores – smaller versions than those used in hospitals.
And, yes, we too have a significant homeless problem in my community, with certain public restrooms and business restrooms more or less permanently occupied, and other places where the business or public agency frequently patrols restroom use (to put it bluntly).
I do remember using a French public loo that had a time limit on the door, you had to keep paying to keep it shut (it wasn’t in Paris).
It would be funny if we have both used the same public bathroom at the beach in Cannes.
No, I think it was in Reims, Chambery, Nice, or Strasbourg, but I’m not sure which. Some touristy French town anyway. How was Cannes?
I’ve been to some pay as you go public bathrooms in France. Doors open after 5 minutes
Something like that might deter the addicts using the new ones Portland provides.
MotRG, yes! France has some fairly decent self-washing public bathrooms. New York has been making headway (no pun intended) as well. As much as me and Adams don’t see eye to eye on a lot, he has an initiative, accompanied by a google maps layer that may improve the somewhat dire historical situation. They’re using containers for garbage now too! Unfathomable. What will happen to the NYC’s rat czar job security when all the garbage is unavailable? Different times we’re living in.
Benign prostatic hyperplasia! (https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/benign-prostatic-hyperplasia-bph) It’s probably coming for you, JM, and most men as we age.
As others have noted here, many people need to plan bike rides around opportunities to pee. I’ve seen at least three cases of people with mental illness and/or other conditions barricaded into Portland Loos, with police and parks employees actively trying to extricate them. Yes, we need more loos everywhere, but the cost is so very very high. The easiest and cheapest thing to do is look away and pretend that there is no need.
The same symptoms could also be kidney stones, most common with people with English or Irish ancestry, very painful, becomes more common as you get older. Similarly, folks suffering from untreated Type 2 diabetes also need to pee more often, at any age. However, most people never suffer from these issues and conditions, none of which are diseases in the normal sense.
Beth’s comment struck me as oddly poignant, given the subject matter. I think a lot of people here feel that they’ve put in good work to make a great city for all, only to have public spaces misused, vandalized, etc.
That degradation has an effect on all of us, but those with special needs bear the brunt!
PREACH it Charley. Here’s the thing I think “typically developing” people just have a hard time empathizing with: people have varying abilities (e.g., cognitive, physical, social), and much of the built environment around us has ignored those differences up until somewhat recently. The ADA was signed into law in 1990 for god’s sake. It’s estimated that around less than 1/3 of the subway stations in the MTA are “accessible,” with various definitions it can be somewhat up to interpretation. But yeah a lot of people tend to knee-jerk disregard building for different abilities (e.g., ramp, elevator), until they themselves find out the hard way through personal experience.
That’s why I bang the gong sometimes on protected bike lanes. It’s not for YOU, dear crit racer. It’s for people who would otherwise throw their hands up and say, “nevermind.”
Maybe with the City of Portland forcing staff downtown they can open up city building’s bathrooms for usage by the public. That would both open opportunities for both sides to address lots of the issues being faced downtown, and assuming you are staffing up buildings, the bathrooms have regular custodial maintenance now, right?
I’m thinking instead of office buildings, what if we built public restrooms at or adjacent to fire stations? By design, they’re relatively easy to get to from most of the city. And given some of the concerns about drug use, it could be good to have first responders nearby. Having a somewhat authoritative 24/7 presence nearby might also deter the more severe and damaging vandalism. Might need some additional staff, since fire fighter unions would probably argue (correctly) that it isn’t their job to police a public restroom. Maybe expand street response for staffing the desk? Not a 24/7 thing, but maybe open 9am to 9pm or something. I’d almost imagine a sort of Japanese Koban-style mini “information desk” with attached restroom.
As a taxpayer, it’s probably cheaper to just buy a $6 pastry or beverage when I need to use a clean restroom, but there are other benefits to having these types of community spots.
My thinking is that every park, of a few blocks in size or more, should have a restroom.
Back in the 1980s I visited downtown Portland and remember a couple restroom buildings. Don’t know if they were more widespread than the few I saw, but it’s something that should be brought back along with the necessary staff to keep them clean and safe.
The money the city could repurpose by stopping the leasing unnecessary office space with many (not the jobs that interface with public) of the workers could quite adequately work from home. They (public and private workers) have already shown they can and be quite happy. And no, it’s not any worker’s responsibility to “save downtown.”
Is WFH a perk or a right?
Neither. It’s one tool among many for supervisors to balance manpower, skillsets, productivity, and physical resources to most efficiently get the job done.
The only time I’ve ever used a Portland Loo was when I stopped in Davis, CA driving back home to Portland from Santa Cruz. It was clean and easy to use and located in a downtown square.
Nonetheless, we generally can’t have nice things in many American cities because we have to accommodate the roughly 20% or so of the population that behave, for whatever reason, anti-socially. Mind you, this roughly 20% aren’t just poor or mentally ill or any other particular ethnic or social demographic. They are a diverse array of individuals who simply don’t care about how they behave in public, and the pandemic just allowed them to go hog wild.
Some societies have cultures and highly functioning governmental systems to minimize the impact of their anti-social people, like Japan or even a place like Calgary, which is much more well managed than Portland. Our culture is a hinderance to solving for the anti-social among us, and our government is run by mediocre and semi-capable people from within our culture, even if some of them are well-meaning.
Toxic Individualism is our problem.
Yeah Adam I get where you’re going I think. This is a really complex topic, and certainly relates to culture. But having experienced many public bathrooms (apologies, just have to share) in many countries, Portland is somewhat in the median IMO when it comes to public restrooms. I don’t like to speculate, because I’d rather read research on the topic, but does that even exist? Here’s a certainly apropos article celebrating “World Toilet Day” from the Crohns and Colitis Found re: just such a public health issue.
As for dumb public health speculation, I’ll try but please tear me a new one if you disagree: this is a combo of lack of empathy for people with disabilities, lack of funding for public housing and zoning codes making housing very expensive, lack of funding for mental health, chauvinism, particularly historically male dominated govt that makes public urination a less of an issue for men, businesses influence that does not want to cater to people who they assume will cut into profit (e.g., a homeless person routinely using their business). Anyway, I’m sure there are a hundred other variables why the US has historically neglected public restrooms.
Japan has excellent public restrooms, they also have a culture of respect which keeps them in good order. This is in addition to daily cleanings. While we have issues here that make it a greater hurdle, if the city of Portland employed cleaners who visisted all of the public restrooms downtown 2-3 times a day it would go a long ways towards making them cleaner and safer to use.
It’s hard to imagine since we have the issues we already have with the loo’s, but what I really want to see is public shower options as well. This could possibly go a long ways towards reducing the use of public fountains and benson bubblers for bathing purposes.
A lot of things work better where people take care of the commons.
This video about the clean public restrooms in Japan was interesting.
The lack of bathroom access can also be deadly, James Chasse was killed by some Portland cops because they “thought” he had peed in public.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Boy:_The_Life_and_Death_of_James_Chasse
Another byproduct of our current homeless situation is that people are actually sleeping in these public toilets. To allow someone to sleep in a toilet instead of forcing then into shelter is one of the most inhumane thing I can think of. It is absolutely heart breaking.
But many Portland homeless advocates, nonprofits and elected officials will tell you “forcing them into shelter” is unkind and lacks compassion. And herein lies our problem…and the reason we see such cruelty on the streets of Portland.
Maybe jonathan, although the current fairly consensus vote for Mayor Wilson may be an indication that a lot of people would like to see a pragmatic solution to homelessness. Given that Hales’ and Wheeler’s policies were fairly ineffective, it’s possible people are more open to the idea that pragmatic scenarios should exist.
For example, the actual precondition of an existing and consistent shelter, something that has not existed yet, WOULD be something that can be considered much more humane than simply allowing people to tent in the public space. This is admittedly TBD, but I have some hope that Wilson’s historical reliance on research and operational experience might help mitigate this problem.
If you want to see more toilets in Portland City Parks (like Waterfront Park, Chapman Square, South park Blocks, North Park Blocks, etc) send a request to Portland Parks here:
Report a Park Maintenance or Safety Issue | Portland.gov
http://www.portland.gov/parks/report
Ted Buehler
See, for example:
https://www.aclu.org/writing-your-elected-representatives
https://rtcil.org/guide-writing-letters-public-officials
https://apps.ecology.wa.gov/publications/documents/2305008.pdf
(A few random internet search results).
Whoa! Check this out! Back in 2005 there were two functional public toilets in Old Town.
https://thehustle.co/the-fight-to-build-more-public-bathrooms-in-america
I haven’t tried to poop in Old Town lately, but judging by the smell of urine and occasional smell of poop I assume we are down to zero public toilets in Old Town.
I wonder where the two public toilets were? That little brick building on Ankeny and the Park Blocks maybe? I wonder what it would take to get them back in service.
Ted Buehler
I remember seeing one on the same block but the backside of the Greyhound bus depot – the nearby TriMet drivers parked in the bus parking lot would use it.
I suggest taking a look at the portapotties under along east side of Naito/Front under the steel bridge. It’s open 24 hours. It also looks like it was picked up and shaken by Godzilla.
I think that ground floor restroom at Grand/Hawthorne MultCo headquarters at the entrance to the Board Chamber needs to be made accessible to public around the clock. Same with the Portland Building by at SW 5th and SW Main downtown.
Up here in Vancouver USA…we ‘imported’ a few Leah Loo’s (aka Portland Loos) at parks like the Waterfront…we enjoy using them versus having to ‘buy or beg’ a merchant for toilet access. As 9 out of 10 merchants have signs “no public restrooms” here.
Thanks Portland, even at full ‘export’ retail cost!