Posted on 08/31/2009 11:42:58 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
NYC Pay Toilet Project Is Slow Going NEW YORK (CBS) ―
Nineteen months after New York City trumpeted automated public toilets, only two are up and running.
Last summer, the city promised four more by the end of 2008. The eventual goal is 20.
The New York Times says the two pioneer potties — in Corona, Queens, and Manhattan's Madison Square Park — have proved popular.
Users pay 25 cents. A machine dispenses toilet paper, and the contraption cleans itself with disinfectant after each use.
David Yagnesak, vice president for operations at Cemusa North America, says that besides plumbing hookups, the toilets require phone lines.
(Excerpt) Read more at wcbstv.com ...
There, fixed it......
How much do these things cost???
Something tells me that plumbing won't be the only kind of hookup going on.
OK. I wonder what for?
(Not that I would read the article or anything...)
The one is Corona is for illegal aliens to give birth to anchor babies. The one in Madison Square is for Dick and Bruce to get in a little Tea-time action during their lunch break.
Slow going? Try more fiber. Not that going? Try more Saw Palmetto.
Mayor NIchols didn't make it past the primary.
GEORGE: Kramer, trust me, this is the best bathroom in midtown!
KRAMER: What??
JERRY: He knows.
GEORGE: ...on the left—exquisite marble! High ceilings. An’ a flush, like a jet engine! [imitates sound] Ha ha!
A couple of months ago, I watched two guys tried to outsmart one of the pay toilets in a Berlin Bier Garten. The door wouldn’t close as long as they were both in it so one waited for the other and then tried to sneak in when the first guy came out. A few seconds later (long enough for him to start his business), the door started randomly opening and closing. Everyone there was enjoying the spectacle, it was cheap entertainment.
Here’s a little tidbit of info about restrooms in office buildings (at least what I observed in places like the SF Bay Area and Albuquerque, NM).
Often the first floor restrooms are locked to prevent use by homeless, etc. (as they tend to trash them). If you go to the 2nd floor or higher, the restrooms are usually unlocked, and as an added benefit, much cleaner, as they don’t get as much traffic.
This assumes you have access to manay or all floors of a building, but it is something to think about.
Doesn’t New Yorkers read their own freaking paper? If they would have, they would have seen this coming.
Seattle to Remove Automated Toilets
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/us/17toilets.html
SEATTLE — After spending $5 million on its five automated public toilets, Seattle is calling it quits.
In the end, the restrooms, installed in early 2004, had become so filthy, so overrun with drug abusers and prostitutes, that although use was free of charge, even some of the city’s most destitute people refused to step inside them.
The units were put up for sale Wednesday afternoon on eBay, with a starting bid set by the city at $89,000 apiece.
The dismal outcome coincides with plans by New York, Los Angeles and Boston, among other cities, to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for expansion this fall in their installation of automated toilets — stand-alone structures with metal doors that open at the press of a button and stay closed for up to 20 minutes. The units clean themselves after each use, disinfecting the seats and power-washing the floors.
Seattle officials say the project here failed because the toilets, which are to close on Aug. 1, were placed in neighborhoods that already had many drug users and transients. Then there was the matter of cost: $1 million apiece over five years, which because of a local ordinance had to be borne entirely by taxpayers instead of advertisers.
excerpt.....
These politicians do ANYTHING to dig in our pockets! One could only hope that one of these guys gets the trots and can find a quarter when it is needed most!
Didn’t SF try this and they ended up being used by drug users as a private place to shoot up?
As I recall people would stay for hours inside them and they became a filthy mess.
I just find a WC in nice hotel lobby...
Here I sit broken hearted. Paid a quarter and only farted.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.