(Informal) NYC Subway Cleaning Experiment

[j44ke]

Thing is, he picked a very (by NYC MTA standards) clean station. Try the Q station at Canal St. Incredible smell in that one, along with all sorts of seepage, rats and other mysterious formations.

[Dallas Tex]

Thing is, he picked a very (by NYC MTA standards) clean station. Try the Q station at Canal St. Incredible smell in that one, along with all sorts of seepage, rats and other mysterious formations.

Can any of you boston guys tell me if Park Street station still has that intense aroma of urine and that loud, high pitched screeeeeech when the train arrives?

[marley]

Can any of you boston guys tell me if Park Street station still has that intense aroma of urine and that loud, high pitched screeeeeech when the train arrives?

Yes and Yes but the aroma is mild at this time of the year (read frozen)

[ericpmoss]

Seoul has the sense to have hundreds of public restrooms. Does NOT smell like pee.

[j44ke]

Seoul has the sense to have hundreds of public restrooms. Does NOT smell like pee.

Central Park fixed up a pair of bathrooms near Bethesda Fountain. A couple weeks after they re-opened, the men's room was closed. Someone took a dump on the floor and smeared it all over the walls. There are a lot of things NYC needs to fix in order to even think about public bathrooms.

Or as a friend said when told NYC needs public bathrooms, "What, you don't like sidewalks? That's pretty public if you ask me."

[ericpmoss]

I guess Seoul had the sense to be full of Koreans, too.

[j44ke]

I guess Seoul had the sense to be full of Koreans, too.

There are plenty of Koreans here, but NYC also has a porous mental health care infrastructure and it does no one any great service, not least of which in the inability to provide and maintain good public restrooms.

Not excusing almost total mismanagement by the state government and the MTA, but NYC does have the only 24 hour subway system in the world. And it is one of the largest. Most subway systems shut down for at least 6 hours every day, and that creates an opportunity for maintenance and cleaning that doesn't exist for NYC. But still....

[j44ke]

We do, however, need more urine remover.

[GrantM]

San Francisco poop map:

(Human) Wasteland

-g

[caleb]

Central Park fixed up a pair of bathrooms near Bethesda Fountain. A couple weeks after they re-opened, the men's room was closed. Someone took a dump on the floor and smeared it all over the walls. There are a lot of things NYC needs to fix in order to even think about public bathrooms.

Or as a friend said when told NYC needs public bathrooms, "What, you don't like sidewalks? That's pretty public if you ask me."

Paris has these awesome public restrooms that hose themselves down after every visitor.

This might honestly be something that robots could fix.

[Corso]

Yes and Yes but the aroma is mild at this time of the year (read frozen)

When I first moved to Boston and took the T, there was a guy who stared at the tracks while waiting for the train, every morning. After a few weeks of watching him, I asked what was doing. He told me if you stared at the grey gravel rocks between the rails, you could see the rats...

So I did, and he was right. Rats or big mice, they were the same color as the gravel, perfect camouflage. If you looked long enough, you could see them move. I bet its the same in every big city.

[snotrockets]

San Francisco poop map:

(Human) Wasteland

-g

Used to work on Bryant & 4th, my fav game walking from/to the BART was human or canine. Most of the time it was human.

[j44ke]

Paris has these awesome public restrooms that hose themselves down after every visitor.

This might honestly be something that robots could fix.

Yep. Nope.

Self-Cleaning Public Toilets Yield to Older Technology in Manhattan - The New York Times

[caleb]

Yep. Nope.

Self-Cleaning Public Toilets Yield to Older Technology in Manhattan - The New York Times

“It wasn’t a bad experience,” Mr. Biederman said. “It just wasn’t a great experience, and we wanted it to be great.”

I was just hoping for not experiencing human feces in the street.

I didn't realize that NYC had tried the automated toilets. I guess that like Seoul, Paris has the advantage of being filled with Parisians.

[j44ke]

This trial run was done by a public-private partnership I believe and wasn't profitable, but there was no destruction of the units. People were just afraid of getting stuck in one. Or robbed. They wanted attendants. Made them feel safer.

Paris has plenty of public urination. I have with my own eyes seen men peeing on the Eglise Sainte Medard when there is a nearby public restroom. Come to the park, eat your lunch, pee on the church, go back to work.

But for NYC, until the city devotes the financial resources to subsidizing public restrooms and removes the requirement for them to break-even in order to qualify as valuable enough (there are a lot of things that are valuable as part of the fabric holding together communities that are not best measured by double-entry bookkeeping) to continue providing and maintaining, there won't be public restrooms.

[Corso]

Restrooms should be "sacred ground" - like a church in "Highlander".

No crime, no funny stuff, just a place for humans to do what's needed, and feel safe about it. Hmmm, maybe if anything illegal happens within 100 feet of a public restroom, penalties are multiplied by 1000x.

Where's my congressman, I need to draft a letter.

[EDS]

This trial run was done by a public-private partnership I believe and wasn't profitable, but there was no destruction of the units. People were just afraid of getting stuck in one. Or robbed. They wanted attendants. Made them feel safer.

Paris has plenty of public urination. I have with my own eyes seen men peeing on the Eglise Sainte Medard when there is a nearby public restroom. Come to the park, eat your lunch, pee on the church, go back to work.

But for NYC, until the city devotes the financial resources to subsidizing public restrooms and removes the requirement for them to break-even in order to qualify as valuable enough (there are a lot of things that are valuable as part of the fabric holding together communities that are not best measured by double-entry bookkeeping) to continue providing and maintaining, there won't be public restrooms.

Central park needs more public restrooms. You get this world view when you go to the park with a 3 year old and the nearest toilet is a half-mile away. That and if you have the misfortune of needing to poop before a CRCA race.

[j44ke]

Central park needs more public restrooms. You get this world view when you go to the park with a 3 year old and the nearest toilet is a half-mile away. That and if you have the misfortune of needing to poop before a CRCA race.

Yeah I bet!

[caleb]

Oh man, the bathrooms are exactly what you thought they were: Subway Bathrooms: Are They as Bad as You Think? - The New York Times

[j44ke]

I like the antique wet paint signs. Classic.

These actually look pretty good. I wouldn't spend any extra time there, but I think the purpose of these restrooms is to make you not want to use them, which is probably better/easier than trying to clean them.

You should see the elevators. Whatever you do, do not get in a subway elevator unless you absolutely need to.