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Please don't pay to use a pay toilet

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Re: Please don't pay to use a pay toilet

#21

Post by Kadin »

ythn wrote: post #5

Pay toilets are super annoying, and very common in Europe. Still, even if you are in NYC, it's hard to find a "free" toilet. Most of the time you have to go to a restaurant, buy something, and then you'll get the key.

That's exactly the tradeoff. Pay toilets are pretty nice when your alternative is either having to patronize a business purely in order to use their bathroom, or drop trou outside somewhere.

Sure, in theory there could be wonderful tax-funded public toilets everywhere, but it's a hard sell to taxpayers: most of the time, locals aren't the ones getting caught in need of a bathroom. (I mean, how many times in your typical day do you use a public toilet? Probably not often; it's a thing you use when traveling, or as a tourist in a different city.) And thus they're understandably reluctant to divert tax money to pay for them, and they get to make the call.

Re: Please don't pay to use a pay toilet

#22

Post by imgabe »

__derek__ wrote: post #4

This framing is ridiculous. The water, power, toilet paper, fixtures, etc., cost money to provide. Someone is always paying for the toilet.

Cleaning up excrement from public areas also costs money and in the meantime makes it less pleasant for everyone. You can pay for one or the other.

Re: Please don't pay to use a pay toilet

#23

Post by hprotagonist »

wonder_er wrote: post #13

Yikes. Who pays for the free toilets, then? I love pay toilets. Most of them are kept clean, and I don't consider finding a clean, available toilet to be a right. I've paid for others to use toilets, and I'll keep doing so. "Don't let people pay for things because poor people might not be able to afford it" is offensive to "poor" people. Oh well. If it makes him feel like he's championing a cause...

>I don't consider finding a clean, available toilet to be a right.

Posit a reason why it is socially unacceptable for people to just crap in the street, then.

Re: Please don't pay to use a pay toilet

#24

Post by bshimmin »

zelos wrote: post #2

Apparently they can make a decent amount of money, roughly 50% profit: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/sep/07/train-statio...

It's quite interesting to see from those numbers how relatively infrequently the pay toilets are actually used: London Victoria has brought in £2,300,511 over 3 years; a quick Google suggests it has a footfall of ~137 million people a year [1]; at 30p a pop, that's really not a lot of people using those toilets as a proportion of the total number of people going through that station.

And, in fact, this tallies with my own experience: I've been through Paddington and Liverpool Street hundreds of times and have only used the toilets on a handful of occasions, usually with moderate cursing at having to find the appropriate change. And they never seem particularly busy.

[1] https://www.networkrail.co.uk/FootfallBreakdownForEachStatio... (not sure of the year)

Re: Please don't pay to use a pay toilet

#25

Post by otachack »

splawn wrote: post #17

Don't get him started on free vs open source toilets. =P I had no idea this was even a thing. Doesn't seem justifiable to me, it just seems cruel.

It's a thing even in places where it isn't explicit, such as in New York City. Many businesses reject people that just come to use a bathroom which will make desperate patrons pay for an item in order to gain access.

Re: Please don't pay to use a pay toilet

#27

Post by unabridged »

Instead of pay toilets, how about a thumbprint or face scan. Take pics of the bathroom before and after every use. Everyone can use the toilet for free, until they are caught abusing it. Then they can pay a fine or take a personal responsibility class to get the privilege back.

Re: Please don't pay to use a pay toilet

#28

Post by CommanderData »

unabridged wrote: post #27

Instead of pay toilets, how about a thumbprint or face scan. Take pics of the bathroom before and after every use. Everyone can use the toilet for free, until they are caught abusing it. Then they can pay a fine or take a personal responsibility class to get the privilege back.

Privacy implications? I.e. Taking a dump becomes another way to disclose your location and whereabouts. Kinda funny.

Re: Please don't pay to use a pay toilet

#29

Post by nessus42 »

When I was in Paris, circa 2000, I came across some interesting pay toilets that were kind of like the Cadillacs of porto-potties. They were located on streets in nice shopping areas. You'd pay for the door to open. They had running water, but no water or fluid in the toilet bowl. Instead, the toilet was more like a concave shelf for peeing and/or pooping on.

When you were done, you'd leave through the door, which would lock behind you, and then for a minute or two, it would go through a self-cleaning cycle, making itself (putatively) spotless for the next customer.

They even had the same idea scaled up to entire motels. Near Lyon, I needed to catch 3 hours of zzz's before going to the airport. I found a motel called "Formule 1". It was a seemingly automated motel. You hardly ever saw an employee.

To park your car, you slid your credit card through a card reader at the parking lot gate, and it charged you $20 or so. You would be given a receipt with a combination number for the front door and for your room.

The bathrooms were down the hall from your room. They were somewhat similar to the fancy porto-poties. Though they also had showers in them. The shower was on a timer. When you left the bathroom, the door would lock behind you for a while, as it would go through its cleaning cycle.

France is strange!

Re: Please don't pay to use a pay toilet

#30

Post by stuaxo »

bshimmin wrote: post #24
zelos wrote: post #2

Apparently they can make a decent amount of money, roughly 50% profit: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/sep/07/train-statio...

It's quite interesting to see from those numbers how relatively infrequently the pay toilets are actually used: London Victoria has brought in £2,300,511 over 3 years; a quick Google suggests it has a footfall of ~137 million people a year [1]; at 30p a pop, that's really not a lot of people using those toilets as a proportion of the total number of people going through that station. And, in fact, this tallies with m…

The toilets in Victoria are some of the foulest smelling around.
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