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The New York City Council just passed a bill requiring the mayor to add approximately 1,000 public bathrooms citywide by 2035—a move that would nearly double the number of notoriously scarce restrooms currently open to the public.
According to statistics, there is currently one public restroom per 7,820 residents in the city. To be clear: that's far from enough.
"The lack of access to public restrooms and accompanied policing of public urination laws disproportionately affect vulnerable communities, including unhoused individuals, older adults and people with medical conditions," reads an official press release.
Why is NYC building 1,000 new public bathrooms?
The Bathroom Bill was sponsored by Council Member Sandy Nurse, who hopes to make it "easier to live and work here."
"Our failure to build more public restrooms has resulted in humiliation, racial and class inequities, thousands of criminal and civil tickets every year and public space that is not welcoming to the public," Nurse said in an official statement. "We will not only increase the number of public bathrooms but require the city to plan for their long-term care and maintenance. This bill will make New York City more livable, more welcoming and a more just place."
Speaking to CBS News about who is going to be responsible for keeping the new destinations clean, Nurse mentioned a few different ideas.
"There are some toilets that are automated cleaning, like they clean themselves," she said to the outlet. "There's going to be private-public partnerships involved in this where the city might incentivize a private building or private company to make their space available, and they'll take care of it."
When is NYC building 1,000 new public bathrooms?
According to the new bill, the city will have to develop and release a strategic planning report about their activities every four years, with the first one due September of 2026. The project is scheduled to be completed in about a decade, in 2035.
While waiting for officials to start building new public bathrooms, you're going to have to make due with what's currently available. Looking for the best ones out there? The city's unofficial restroom investigator tells us all about the cleanest and most worthy-of-visit bathrooms currently out there!