Public Toilets in Downtown Dallas

[darkblood]

This is an issue that rather irks me as I, like many Americans, have er.. urgency issues. Downtown Dallas seems to have virtually no public restrooms. The ones that they do have apparently are in businesses like Starbucks that generally require you to be a paying customer. We really need to have more public restrooms if we're going to attract more tourism downtown. I don't know about others, but for me bodily functions come first. So when I'm in a new area I try to locate the restrooms first.

I found an interesting site that helps people search for public restrooms.

http://www.sitorsquat.com

One brand of self-cleaning toilet, that does take into account all the issues that public toilets encounter is..

http://www.exeloo.com

[downtownguy25]

Most tourists will be going into stores and buying something, drinks or souvenirs and can use restrooms there.

[kenc]

Another good opportunity for restroom needs are Hotels which all have toilets and are public spaces. I learned this lesson when I lived in NYC.

[cowboyeagle05]

I kinda agree you can buy things for less than a dollar and be a customer in some Downtown businesses and use their restrooms. The worst part of some kind of public restroom is of course the homeless. I've never personally been traveling and seen "public restrooms" available to me so concepts for such things seems odd to me but I'm willing to learn about the subject. The exception being those roadside areas which are gross enough without the urban problems.

Course the new Main Street Gardens will have a unisex bathroom which I think we all will stay far away from for the very same reason in addition to the line of people it will attract.

[darkblood]

I kinda agree you can buy things for less than a dollar and be a customer in some Downtown businesses and use their restrooms. The worst part of some kind of public restroom is of course the homeless. I've never personally been traveling and seen "public restrooms" available to me so concepts for such things seems odd to me but I'm willing to learn about the subject. The exception being those roadside areas which are gross enough without the urban problems.

Course the new Main Street Gardens will have a unisex bathroom which I think we all will stay far away from for the very same reason in addition to the line of people it will attract.

The self-cleaning public restrooms have an alarm and open the door when someone has been in there for more than 15 minutes, or a pre-set time length. Some self-cleaning restrooms activate the clean function after a set period of time, so homeless people cannot sleep in them.

[TheMapman]

I had a friend get stuck in a self-cleaning bathroom in Corsica, he didn't think that was really too much fun.

There are also "public" bathrooms in most of the office buildings, and in the tunnels. You shouldn't have any problem accessing them.

[aygriffith]

The only places i've seen public restrooms are places that really have no homeless people and are touristy downtowns. They have them in places like Scottsdale and Park City but if you travel to DT Phoenix or DT Salt Lake which are the corresponding core downtown business centers you wont see the same public street level restrooms.

I've been in Jimmy Johns many times when a homeless person has comed storming in and gone directly to the restroom even with the Jimmy Johns employees yelling at them. I really think places like Jimmy Johns and McDonalds should install the 25 cent restrooms. That small amount would really put a roadblock the homeless running into Jimmy's and trying to use the restroom.

[mjblazin]

Very few office buildings allow access to rest rooms without a code. It originally started as a safety measure for women's bathrooms and being relatively cheap, migrated to the men's rooms to control other outsiders. It's one reason I had to laugh at the complaints on another thread that the chip in your passport might tell people where you are. Between my loft parking and pedestrian gates, fitness center, tollway, DART pass, building access, office access, and bathroom access plus all the times I use my phone to talk or send text or use my debit card, I must be "located" by some network 50-60 times a day, minimum. Worrying about one more location at the airport does not seem to be worth the effort.

[darkblood]

The only places i've seen public restrooms are places that really have no homeless people and are touristy downtowns. They have them in places like Scottsdale and Park City but if you travel to DT Phoenix or DT Salt Lake which are the corresponding core downtown business centers you wont see the same public street level restrooms.

I've been in Jimmy Johns many times when a homeless person has comed storming in and gone directly to the restroom even with the Jimmy Johns employees yelling at them. I really think places like Jimmy Johns and McDonalds should install the 25 cent restrooms. That small amount would really put a roadblock the homeless running into Jimmy's and trying to use the restroom.


Addison has a nice public restroom in Addison Circle park. Of course Addison doesn't have many homeless people due to the Addison police that discourage loitering, public disturbances, and any indication of neglected grooming.

[NThomas]

The self-cleaning public restrooms have an alarm and open the door when someone has been in there for more than 15 minutes, or a pre-set time length. Some self-cleaning restrooms activate the clean function after a set period of time, so homeless people cannot sleep in them.
Wouldn't a "self-cleaning" every 15 min be an incentive to stay in there? ;)

[AeroD]

Even in the marshmallow dream that is Austin, at least one of the public restrooms at Town Lake has been locked up. Now, we have port-a-potties standing right next to that public restroom.

Seattle gave up on its space-age self-cleaning public toilets: http://www.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2008-08-15-seattle-toilets_N.htm

[electricron]

Union Station has restrooms just off the lobby. I'll assume City Hall and the County Courthouses do too.

Many of the public restrooms in Europe are substandard and outdoors, most being like an old fashioned country outhouses. Much like portable toilets you'll see at construction sites in America.

Therefore, I'm glad there aren't many outdoor public restrooms in downtown Dallas and Fort Worth.

[darkblood]

Wouldn't a "self-cleaning" every 15 min be an incentive to stay in there? ;)

Sure, if you don't mind reeking of disinfectant foam.

[cowboyeagle05]

Just because its funny I remember an episode of CSI NY where a competing company who made units like these rewired one on the street from another company causing it to clean itself while someone was inside drowning them. Course that was TV and that "self cleaning" toilet was obviously a fake in the sense that the amount of water it used to clean itself would not be efficient for any expense. What ever it made for an OK episode.

[RandomShawn]

Most tourists will be going into stores and buying something, drinks or souvenirs and can use restrooms there.

Agreed.

[darkblood]

Well after looking at the restroom database at http://www.sitorsquat.com I guess the restroom issue downtown is not as dire as I thought it might be.

This reminds me of London, where they don't have enough space to put the restroom behind the restaurants, so they put them underneath the restaurant. Our first night we went to the Troubador (http://www.troubadour.co.uk/), which has a long staircase going down to the restrooms. And I was puzzled how people when drunk made it down those stairs successfully without falling to their death.