The lack of public toilets in Manhattan is a regrettable failure of modern civilization.

Especially in a tourist city, a walking city, a shopping city - the situation is pretty, ahem, piss-poor. According to the New Yorker, back in the 30’s, New York City was fairly well equipped to handle the situation - however, rising crime and costs drove public restrooms to the back burner.

The challenge for local government is that a publicly-available, 6′x4′ private space with a toilet quickly becomes utilized for all types of things for which it was never intended. A brothel. A place to sell, smoke, snort, or inject drugs. A place to sleep for the night - or every night. If there is unsecured wifi nearby, someone will probably setup a startup in it. Stalls get illegally sublet to the newly-arrived at Port Authority.

From the administrative perspective it’s a niggling budgetary, safety, sanitation, and liability issue with very little ROI.

Recently, the city attempted to launch a new effort to address the problem. New York is buying $100,000 self-cleaning standalone pay toilet systems which have had success in Europe for years. Unfortunately, The Seattle Times reports today that their own city’s experiment with similar units has been a failure:

“After the automated restrooms opened in 2004, their floor-cleaning mechanisms became clogged by trash. Prostitutes and drug users sought cover in them. The Downtown Seattle Association reported that human waste on the streets increased, instead of decreasing, after they opened. Each restroom was used 85 to 124 times a day. Sewer ratepayers bore the cost, adding $2.59 to the average annual single-family home’s bill of $465.”

(Not that I doubt anything in that quote, but I really need to know how the five toilets are being used about 500 times a day and human waste on the street increased -? )

Update: after contacting Seattle Times reporter Sharon Chan, I should point out that unlike the NYC pay toilets, the Seattle toilets are free. I wonder if by not charging even a token amount per use, Seattle removed the one crucial element which would have helped funding and curbed abuse.

As the New York Times mentions, the units are not an appealing experience, with their cold, wet metal rim (you can’t even call it a seat), and bowel-intimidating 15-minute time limit. Its basically a self-wardening prison cell with a 15-minute maximum sentence (in fact, it bears a passing resemblance to Acorn Engineering’s suicide-resistant Penal-Ware® Line).

This toilet is not so much a solution for New Yorkers who need to go to the bathroom - it’s more an overpriced idealism for governments which seek solutions to administration and maintenance.

The non-profit(?) American Restroom Association (yes, there is one, I’m guessing institutional fixture manufacturers are in there somewhere, but it claims to represent people who need public facilities) is not a fan of these units, which are referred to as automated public toilets or APT’s. I’m guessing part of the reason is that many, like the New York and Seattle units, are manufactured overseas in Europe and New Zealand.

What’s more, they only work from 8AM to 8PM, which is of absolutely no help at all when most businesses are closed and you’re dead smack between stops on a bar crawl.

The problem is that the issue of proper public restrooms has been neglected for so long (we expect the private sector like restaurants and Starbuck’s to pick up the slack - and arguably profit from it), we no longer even believe that we as a people truly deserve them.

Last holiday season, Charmin made the ultimate humane gesture to New York by installing a wonderful, clean, fully-staffed, free public restroom facility in Times Square. Is this concept so fully beyond the reach of human civilization that we cannot make it commonplace?

How rare an experience is it to be welcomed into a facility full of clean, private bathrooms, tastefully decorated, with full dispensers of of a variety of premium toilet paper? Instead of bumping into a waitress giving you the old evil-eye while sneaking into the local diner, you have friendly, neatly dressed young people happily guiding you to your own personal john, and cheering you on to relieve yourself as if you were a 3-year-old!

That, my friend, is a tempting elimination experience. It makes me want to grab a couple of bran muffins, The New York Times, a Starbucks Venti Hazelnut Mocha, and jump on the next train to Times Square right now. Unfortunately, I think they took the whole facility down after the holiday promotion (somebody let me know if it’s still there).

I challenge Charmin competitor Cottonelle to respond in kind, but on a permanent basis, around the entire city. Seriously, if they have the marketing cash to plaster the entire subway system with toilet paper , puppies, and awkward copy like ‘The Average Man Won’t Throw Out His Underwear Until The Band Breaks‘, they can certainly open up their own little poopy palaces, don’t ya think?

I really admire the Cottonelle subway ad campaign, mostly because the ribbed texture give the cars a nice clean, cozy feel, which I am certain is what was totally intended. Oh, and the little puppy reminds me of my dog. The eyebrow-raising ad copy also gets people talking - and blogging - about their ads. Kimberly-Clark says it’s the the largest non-traditional ad campaign in history.

The problem with available restrooms in New York City isn’t limited to public toilets - many businesses don’t even have the semi-public facilities to accommodate their own customers, as I recently observed while attending ‘Cat On A Hot Tin Roof’ at the Broadhurst Theatre. The ladies room line was atrocious and lasted well past intermission. For future reference, a lady slipping into the men’s room isn’t quite as an acceptable option at the theatre as it is at a Met’s game (one woman tried, but her friend insisted it was inappropriate).

Some might argue that, hey, you’ve lived in this city for a while - you develop your daily habits, you get to know your go-to places, its not a big deal (except for the few million tourists). Well, what if you live here and have a medical condition, such as ulcerative colitis? Artist Tommy Mintz does, and as a result, finding a NYC restroom is WAY more urgent a situation then it is for you or me.

Tommy has created a pocket-sized NYC Public Toilet Map that you can buy for $2 (plus $.50 shipping) on his website.

There have been other NYC public restroom mapping projects on the web, including the Google Maps-based nyrestroom.com. The problem with most of these solutions is that, when you really need to go, you don’t typically have the patience to whip out your Blackberry just to find out how frustrating (or even possible) it is to navigate on your tiny mobile browser.

Colitis isn’t the only condition with which sufferers might need restrooms on an urgent basis either. As modern television pharmaceutical ads remind us every day, our enlarged prostates, urinary tract infections, and overactive bladder syndrome are all underlying causes of frequent and urgent needs to go potty.

There is another class of restroom user that I have a great deal of sympathy for. It’s the parent with a kid still in diapers. Seriously, I don’t know how they do it in this city. There is so little to work with - and so little space to do it in. This is especially a problem for Dad’s, as men’s rooms don’t commonly have the blessed diaper changing station.

Impressively, DaddyTypes.com has the Google Map of Men’s Restrooms with Baby Diaper Changing Tables, which seems to be just as, if not more than, complete than other general-purpose restroom maps.

Whenever I think of these maps, I cannot help but be reminded of the Seinfeld episode where George reveals his secret NYC ‘public’ bathroom for use in emergencies - an unsecured washroom on the upper floor of some high-rise executive offices. As we all know, these facilities, largely hidden from casual discovery, are now commonly unreachable behind ground-floor security, a sign-in book, your photo id, an appointment with a tenant, an elevator ride, and even then, locked or key-coded areas or doors.

Yes, thanks to 9/11 (and, George Constanza) , you can neither take pictures of train tracks nor surreptitiously relieve yourself at a well-appointed Manhattan law office washroom. (If you remember, George later secured his own personal ADA restroom - and a Lark - by feigning workplace disability).

Us Metro-North New Haven Line riders have an additional problem to deal with - during our long commute into town, the only option is the restroom on the train, and what a wildly unpopular option it is (and a major complaint in the recent Metro-North satisfaction survey).

Lacking other available seats, anyone who has made the mistake once will not even sit in the same car as a restroom on the New Haven Line. Us guys, we got it easy, so yeah, we’ll use it in a pinch - but I don’t blame the ladies for totally avoiding it (my wife won’t go near it) - there are passengers that can’t even manage to get the screwy doors open on those 30-plus-year-old stinkers. (Harlem and Hudson Lines have vacuum toilets, and New Haven will start getting the new M-8 cars with them at the end of 2009).

Perhaps MTA should take a hint from India, and just turn the New Haven line toilets into track-opening outhouses/birthing chairs. At least we would have some serious circulation in there.

The greatest global public restroom challenge of all will be this summer, when Bejing, China hosts the 2008 Summer Olympic Games.

You see, besides their cardboard dumplings, lead toys, and psychic spies trying to steal your mind’s elation, China has yet another dirty little secret.

They haven’t upgraded their toilet technology.

Ever.

These are Chinese squat toilets. I shit you not.

Those stalls to the left aren’t the poorly-maintained children’s shower stalls you were hoping they were, them theres is TOILETS! That’s right - its a hole. They squat. Over a hole. With no door or wall. Right next to each other. For reals. In 2008. And they are a superpower.

I like to think that I am pretty fair and level-headed, decently well-traveled, and give other cultures the benefit of the doubt when their lifestyle diverges so dramatically from my own, but I just gotta call them out on this one, cause its wrong on so many, many levels.

Now, the cleanliness of the facilities vary, but the squat toilet itself is so commonplace in Bejing that countries with lots of Chinese tourists have to post signs reminding Chinese not to try to squat over a regular flush toilet. Wow. Major faux-pau avoided there.

I mean, never mind using these - heck we’ve all been camping - just think of the impact of the visual and olfactory sensations when you walk into a restroom after the morning 200-meter hurdles, and see all four stalls in use by grown men - face to face (or worse)! Argh! My damn vivid imagination.

ADA Public Restroom, Beijing Olympic Tennis Venue

Early foreign pre-games visitors have let Beijing know that this is just not going to fly. That Beijing had not even considered this issue is reflected in the fact that even the new venues built specifically for the Olympic games had squat toilets (Now I don’t feel as bad about my own cultural insensitivity). Organizers are frantically working to retrofit to sit toilets, but from the sounds of it this will only be partially possible on a VIP-priority basis.

If you think that sucks for American tourists, think of the poor Europeans who like to finish up with a nice bidet! You’re not in Paris anymore, mon ami.

And what about Japanese tourists, who are at the very top of the toilet evolutionary chain, with their electronic paperless toilets with built-in bum cleaners? How will they cope? Like they needed another cultural rift with China!

Will Smith has one of the super-duper Japanese ToTo toilets too - and loves it - although he warns: “Not everyone can handle this thing emotionally, so I’ve made sure I also have a few normal toilets in my house.”

Now that’s the kind of considerate guy who should be in charge of Olympic toilets.

One last note: you have to see this transparent one-way public restroom in Houston.

Awesome.