If you spend enough time in certain parts of San Francisco, you know that our city has a big poop problem. Although our local government has managed to find somewhat effective solutions for providing food, shelter, and mental health outreach for the homeless, the question of where those without access to toilets can relieve themselves has been routinely ignored. Fixed public toilets have never been much help, falling victim to disrepair, a lack of cleanliness, and sadly, they’ve become very convenient places to do drugs. As a result, leisurely strolls down the sidewalk have turned into ground-scanning evasion missions, and homeless people have no real choice but to use the streets as a latrine, for which they can be ticketed and even arrested.
Fast Company reports that luckily a pilot project to defeat street poop has literally rolled out a trial number of toilets on wheels, called the Tenderloin Pit Stop, named after the part of the city with the most crap-per-capita. These mobile bathrooms are equipped with a sink and toilets, a dog waste station, and a needle disposal receptacle. Restroom occupiers have five minutes to do the doo before an attendant whisks them out to allow for the next person in need, and every night the Department of Public Works carts away the bathrooms to be cleaned and sanitized for the next day’s use.
The three toilets currently being deployed are located on Ellis Street between Taylor and Jones, Hyde Street between Eddy and Turk, and Golden Gate Avenue between Jones and Taylor, and they have been available to use Tuesdays through Fridays from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. The decision as to where to place them came from a project by developer Jennifer Wong, who used DWP data to create a map of the city’s dirtiest streets (that came out via HotPads). Her employer, Zillow, actually gave her a prize for her work in pinpointing the poop problem, some of which she donated to another pro-hygiene project called Lava Mae.
If you were wondering who will actually staff these traveling lavatories, another SF nonprofit called the San Francisco Clean City Coalition has partnered with the DWP to stand outside the door to make sure nobody is in there too long, a seemingly better solution than the current practice of automated toilets opening their doors after 20 minutes whether you want them to or not. (Additionally, SF’s public toilets have been marred by complaints that the self-cleaning cycle doesn’t do all that much cleaning, and that the outside smells exactly like the inside.)
Although the Tenderloin Pit Stop six-month trial period comes to an end tomorrow, January 16th, plans have not yet been announced to increase the number of roving toilets in the city. Still, their implementation has been seemingly successful, and after the DWP analyzes their effectiveness, we might just start seeing more places for people to go, and a little less poo on the shoe.
[Via Fast Company., photo from Thinkstock]
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