Can You Hold It a Little Longer?

Currently, New York City has one public restroom per 7,820 residents. That’s merely 1,100 public toilets for an urban population of 8.6 million residents. This has made NYC notorious for long lines and public urination offenses, and has made restrooms largely inaccessible for the city’s unhoused individuals and those who cannot afford customer-only bathrooms.

The City Council announced a plan to address this long-standing issue when it voted on April 10 to enact a citywide strategy to create more public bathrooms, with a goal of building over 2,120 public restrooms by 2035.

Council Member Sandy Nurse, who is chair of the Committee on Criminal Justice and was formerly chair of the Sanitation and Solid Waste Management committee, is sponsoring the plan. She had originally proposed the bill in August 2023 with a goal of creating one public restroom per 2,000 residents by 2035. However, according to the New York Times, Nurse observed hesitation from the city when it came to investing millions in bathrooms.

But the need to take action has rapidly grown since then. In the 2024 Fiscal Year, the NYPD issued 46 percent more criminal and civil summonses for public urination.

“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,” said Nurse in the bill’s press release. “This bill will make New York City more livable, more welcoming, and a more just place.”

Nurse is partnering with the Department of City Planning (DCP), the Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR), the Department of Transportation (DOT), and any additional agency that can offer relevant expertise.

According to the bill’s official introduction, each of the collaborating agencies will be responsible for producing a strategic planning report to be updated every four years. These reports will propose policy updates as needed and identify sites that can be converted into a public bathroom.

An increase in restrooms means an increase in maintenance and, according to CBS News, Nurse plans to accommodate this through self-cleaning toilets and private-public partnerships.

“There are some toilets that are automated cleaning, like they clean themselves,” Nurse said. “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.”

Mayor Eric Adams announced his own bathroom plan, “Ur In Luck,” this past June, but it entailed a less dramatic reform. Under Adams’s plan, 46 new restrooms would be built over five years. With the Council’s vote to go forth with Nurse’s bathroom bill, the plan will now head to the Mayor’s office to determine its fate.

“Access to public bathrooms is essential to New Yorkers’ health, safety, and quality of life,” said Speaker Adrienne Adams in the press release. “This Council is proud to address [this] long-standing issue.”