Public bathrooms in the subway to reopen for the first time since pandemic

[CyclonicTrainLookout]

The MTA has announced the reopening of public bathrooms for the first time since the pandemic started at 9 stations across the four boroughs on Monday, January 9. Bathrooms will be open from 7 am to 7 pm, with a one-hour closure for cleaning from 12 pm to 1 pm. https://new.mta.info/press-release/mta-announces-18-public-bathrooms-will-reopen-monday-jan-9

[QM1to6Ave]

3 minutes ago, CyclonicTrainLookout said:

The MTA has announced the reopening of public bathrooms for the first time since the pandemic started at 9 stations across the four boroughs on Monday, January 9. Bathrooms will be open from 7 am to 7 pm, with a one-hour closure for cleaning from 12 pm to 1 pm. https://new.mta.info/press-release/mta-announces-18-public-bathrooms-will-reopen-monday-jan-9

I'm sure those cleanings will happen on schedule every day LOL

[B35 via Church]

The subway system itself is a bathroom.

[Lawrence St]

9 hours ago, B35 via Church said:

The subway system itself is a bathroom.

Considering the fact that someone decided to take a dump on the seat next to me while on the , that statement is accurate.

[biGC323232]

4 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

Considering the fact that someone decided to take a dump on the seat next to me while on the , that statement is accurate.

Lol...What????

[Lawrence St]

55 minutes ago, biGC323232 said:

Lol...What????

I kid you not. Came up, took a dump, and left at the next stop. I was mortified.

[ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ]

Bathrooms should be a basic human right, though I understand public subway restrooms can easily become hangouts for the homeless and people doing illegal drugs and whatnot.

Practically it seems like bathrooms can really only work at large station that has a complex with a lot of police and other staff (Fulton St would be the best example). Ik the PATH train is able to maintain very large, clean, and safe bathrooms at the WTC station, but again, that's a unique case because police don't allow homeless people to camp out inside the whole complex.

[mrsman]

I tend to agree.

There can be a balance between service and safety.

Larger stations should have public restrooms and smaller stations should have restrooms only availabe to staff and emergencies.

What defines a larger station?  Certainly major transfer points (including bus-subway transfers) and probably want to be sure that no place is too far away from a public bathroom, so maybe a need to provide a public bathroom at least every 5 local stops.

[Trainmaster5]

I have a completely different perspective on this topic. My experience as a rider and as an employee are different than 98% of my fellow posters and the riding public.. Been riding the system alone since 1959 and have seen many changes since then. Was first employed by NYCTA as a RR Porter provisionally 9 years later thanks to some family contacts. I have cleaned stations as varied as Church Avenue on the Nostrand line, Gun Hill upper and lower on the WPR line, Chambers Street Nassau Loop, and the Myrtle Avenue El from Bridge-Jay to Sumner Avenue ( for a whole week ) and Prospect Park on my home line the Brighton. I primarily worked from 8pm to 4am as an extra filling in for the highest seniority guys. No females back then. The Myrtle job was the number one job in the BMT and Prospect Park was the number three job in the BMT. They had three separate seniority lists back then. What I’m getting at is that each station was covered by RR Porters on two shifts daily. Bathrooms, turnstiles, platforms, token booths, stairways. Two shifts ,24/7/365 , and it was the rule and not the exception. Junkies, Gays, whatever. No problemo for us back then. Left the job and came back to Transit a decade later. The motor instructors who knew my history told me what was happening behind the scenes. Bathrooms were being closed for “safety “ reasons they told the public. Actually they were pruning the entire workforce. They kept Times Square, Grand Central, Broadway-East New York and some other big ones open but that was it. Same thing is happening with the RR Clerks, aka “Station Agents” today. The latest announcement is pure manure to someone from my generation. A few bottles of the disinfectant that was used in my day is/was guaranteed to have the homeless on the move. They would never set up camp in the stations or the bathrooms. Your eyes would water and burn. One motor instructor and a trainmaster told me that some advocacy group protested that the chemicals were dangerous and harmful to the public so they stopped using them and that fed into the reduction in porters in the system. I’m approaching my mid seventies now so I guess they can make this announcement and most folks won’t know the backstory. My take. I remember a meeting where someone said “ blind them with BS “ and the people will never know. I’m not too sure about that because a shiny new subway car in a station that smells like feces ain’t gonna fool everybody. Carry on.

[TheMTAEmprie]

On 2/6/2023 at 6:45 PM, mrsman said:

I tend to agree.

There can be a balance between service and safety.

Larger stations should have public restrooms and smaller stations should have restrooms only availabe to staff and emergencies.

What defines a larger station?  Certainly major transfer points (including bus-subway transfers) and probably want to be sure that no place is too far away from a public bathroom, so maybe a need to provide a public bathroom at least every 5 local stops.

Plus those restrooms were disgusting as all hell.

[ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ]

On 2/6/2023 at 10:32 PM, Trainmaster5 said:

I have a completely different perspective on this topic. My experience as a rider and as an employee are different than 98% of my fellow posters and the riding public.. Been riding the system alone since 1959 and have seen many changes since then. Was first employed by NYCTA as a RR Porter provisionally 9 years later thanks to some family contacts. I have cleaned stations as varied as Church Avenue on the Nostrand line, Gun Hill upper and lower on the WPR line, Chambers Street Nassau Loop, and the Myrtle Avenue El from Bridge-Jay to Sumner Avenue ( for a whole week ) and Prospect Park on my home line the Brighton. I primarily worked from 8pm to 4am as an extra filling in for the highest seniority guys. No females back then. The Myrtle job was the number one job in the BMT and Prospect Park was the number three job in the BMT. They had three separate seniority lists back then. What I’m getting at is that each station was covered by RR Porters on two shifts daily. Bathrooms, turnstiles, platforms, token booths, stairways. Two shifts ,24/7/365 , and it was the rule and not the exception. Junkies, Gays, whatever. No problemo for us back then. Left the job and came back to Transit a decade later. The motor instructors who knew my history told me what was happening behind the scenes. Bathrooms were being closed for “safety “ reasons they told the public. Actually they were pruning the entire workforce. They kept Times Square, Grand Central, Broadway-East New York and some other big ones open but that was it. Same thing is happening with the RR Clerks, aka “Station Agents” today. The latest announcement is pure manure to someone from my generation. A few bottles of the disinfectant that was used in my day is/was guaranteed to have the homeless on the move. They would never set up camp in the stations or the bathrooms. Your eyes would water and burn. One motor instructor and a trainmaster told me that some advocacy group protested that the chemicals were dangerous and harmful to the public so they stopped using them and that fed into the reduction in porters in the system. I’m approaching my mid seventies now so I guess they can make this announcement and most folks won’t know the backstory. My take. I remember a meeting where someone said “ blind them with BS “ and the people will never know. I’m not too sure about that because a shiny new subway car in a station that smells like feces ain’t gonna fool everybody. Carry on.

Thank you for this post; that's really disgusting and unfortunate because by denying people restrooms I believe you're denying them humanity, yet at the same time they're getting rid of jobs. Today I actually had to pee pretty badly while I was riding the  train, but I am young enough that I could hold it in until I got to my destination. I feel especially bad for older folks and people who may generally have problems because they literally have nowhere to go.

I do agree with another poster that while in an ideal world it's be great, having restrooms at every station is impractical; having them at high ridership stations distributed throughout the system makes the most sense. If foot traffic in the bathrooms in high enough, it'll help prevent homeless camping and drug dens. You could also station the police outside the restroom to ensure there aren't problems.