AGENCY TESTIMONY
Challenges in implementing public restroom access
0:26:00
·
170 sec
Ya-Ting Liu outlines four main constraints faced by the city government in implementing public restroom access: citing challenges, balancing upgrades with maintenance, cost and time intensity of building restrooms, and the need for private sector collaboration.
- Citing challenges include finding feasible locations in dense urban areas and navigating approval processes.
- Balancing new restroom construction with maintaining existing facilities is crucial.
- Building public restrooms is costly (about $5 million per restroom) and time-consuming (3-4 years to build).
- The city recognizes that government alone cannot solve the public restroom access issue and seeks creative partnerships with the private sector.
Ya-Ting Liu
0:26:00
I will try to go through these really quickly, but the 4 main constraints faced by city government today are citing.
0:26:07
The citing challenges are real.
0:26:10
We want more restrooms, but in a city as dense as New York, and the public right of way, there's a lot of demands for that sidewalk space and that plaza space beyond the existing parks footprint.
0:26:24
It's really challenging to find the locations and feasible locations.
0:26:29
We, as an administration, are focused citing on restrooms in high foot traffic areas and in areas that have less access to public restrooms.
0:26:38
But the scoping, the approvals, the underground, I as a DDC commissioner Tom Foley likes to say the underground spaghetti, western spaghetti soup of utilities, those things all require intensive work.
0:26:55
And we need your help to get through the community board and other types of approval process.
0:27:04
To to site at these new locations.
0:27:07
Is existing restroom upgrades must be balanced with building new restrooms and maintaining the existing bathroom inventory?
0:27:14
The parks department is is carrying the largest stock of public restrooms in the city.
0:27:20
This footprint is no small task to maintain.
0:27:23
Parks recently received funding for a second shift, cleaning to help maintain parks, including public restrooms.
0:27:30
And if the restroom stock increases in their footprint, policy and legislation should account for additional resources to require to maintain those additional sites.
0:27:40
3, building public restrooms that are cost and time intensive.
0:27:45
Parks restrooms right now cost about $5,000,000 per restroom.
0:27:49
Take 3 to 4 years to build.
0:27:51
The automatic public toilets take more than a year to move through a 5 step approval process.
0:27:59
Again, this administration has been really focused on the capital reform effort and trying to make efficiencies in the way city government builds capital projects that we think will help move the needle.
0:28:12
But again, the existing way that we build restrooms and other infrastructure is quite labor and time intensive.
0:28:21
Lastly, we feel that city government alone cannot solve the public restroom access issue.
0:28:28
Many other cities have found creative incentive programs.
0:28:32
Munich and London are paying businesses to open up their restroom facilities to the public, and we just really really welcome creative ways to collaborate and partner with the private sector as well to figure out how we can make the existing restroom facilities of the city.
