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Q&A
Parks Commissioner discusses department's focus on public bathrooms
1:24:17
·
85 sec
Commissioner Susan Donoghue responds to concerns about inadequate bathroom facilities, highlighting the Parks Department's focus on public bathrooms and recent initiatives to address the issue.
- The department has mapped all bathrooms in their inventory using the Vital Parks Explorer tool
- Over 70% of New Yorkers have a public bathroom within a 10-minute walk of their home
- The Parks Department maintains over 600 public restrooms in New York City
- A $150 million Better Bathrooms initiative has been announced, including 46 new bathrooms and 36 renovations
Susan Donoghue
1:24:17
Thank you, council member, for the question, and it absolutely does.
1:24:22
As part of what I talked about in my testimony as part of our Vital Parks Explorer tool, we've mapped all the bathrooms that we have in our inventory, and we were pleased over 70% of New Yorkers have a bathroom, a public bathroom within a ten minute walk of their of their house.
1:24:43
We know that that 30% is really important, and that's why we've mapped them, and that's why we're really focused on targeting our investments to where they're needed the most.
1:24:53
The Parks Department maintains over 600 public restrooms in New York City, and we are the largest provider of public restrooms in New York City.
1:25:04
We have more public restrooms than there are Starbucks in state parks in parks.
1:25:10
There are more Starbucks across the state.
1:25:13
So, we think a lot about bathrooms.
1:25:15
We're very, very focused on them.
1:25:17
There's no doubt.
1:25:18
And that's why with our I said in my testimony with our Let's Swim, I mean, with our Better Bathrooms initiative that we announced a hundred and $50,000,000 in new investment in bathrooms.
1:25:30
So 46 new ones we're building, 36 that we're renovating.
1:25:35
So I hear you, two stalls is not enough, but it's been an incredible focus.
1:25:40
I appreciate that.
1:25:41
Absolutely.