A new Google Maps layer shows public restrooms in NYC

There’s no elegant option to say this: going to the lavatory in New York is a nightmare. Public restrooms within the metropolis are exhausting to search out and are sometimes both out of order or require you to purchase one thing at a retailer or café to have the ability to use. The issue is so unhealthy that people have created their very own sources for locating public restrooms.

A brand new Google Maps layer launched by town makes an attempt to sort out this problem. As a part of a brand new program referred to as “Ur in Luck,” town has launched a Maps view dotted with 1,000 public restrooms throughout the 5 boroughs. Customers can view the map on their telephones and find the closest restroom that’s accessible to the general public.

“Everybody — seniors, mother and father with children, anybody having fun with the day outdoor, wants entry to a public rest room with out having to purchase something or beg for a code,” Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi stated in a press launch. Town will even construct 46 new restrooms and renovate 36 current places over the subsequent 5 years.

The map will little doubt be useful, however I can’t assist however really feel indignant taking a look at it. One thousand loos for 8 million New Yorkers is woefully inadequate, and it’s unclear if each restroom on the map is in operation. There are enormous swarths of town that present no public restrooms, together with standard areas round Chinatown and Soho. Most of the loos shut at 4PM.

Plentiful public restrooms are a quality-of-life problem — it’s exhausting to take pleasure in a time out if you need to fear about whenever you’ll be capable of use the restroom subsequent. Many individuals, together with pregnant folks, children, older adults, and other people with disabilities, want restrooms which might be simply accessible. Hundreds of unhoused folks typically have nowhere personal to go to the lavatory, an issue exacerbated by the pandemic. Rideshare drivers should resort to urinating in bottles and parking heaps as a result of a scarcity of restrooms.

There may be at the least one vital establishment that does present public restrooms: the library system. Public library branches throughout New York supply comfy loos, no buy vital. Public libraries play an vital function in communities moreover having loos, providing charging stations, academic sources, or just a cool, quiet place to sit down in the summertime. However it’s turning into more durable for libraries in New York to do that important work as a result of Mayor Eric Adams reduce greater than $58 million from the library programs’ price range this 12 months, inflicting many to have to shut on Sundays.

In Japan, the place I grew up, there are public loos in each prepare station, cleaned consistently all through the day. There are simply accessible restrooms at shops, comfort shops, and at parks. New York is a world-class metropolis, full of a lot to do and see that spending a whole time out of the home isn’t simply widespread however enjoyable. Our rest room state of affairs woefully falls in need of what New Yorkers deserve: sanitary restrooms everywhere in the metropolis that guarantee everybody can “go” when they should with dignity.