Good Lord, I had to pee. We’ve all experienced those dreaded intervals of urgency on the highway, when we need, need, need, to go, and we don’t know when the next restroom will appear on the horizon. For me, this was one of those times.
My girlfriend and I were in my home state of New Hampshire, enjoying the last day of a pleasant vacation. Cruising down Interstate 93 in our rental car, I found myself a couple of Dunkin Donuts iced coffees past my bladder capacity.
With great relief, we arrived at a highway rest stop. Operated by the New Hampshire Department of Transportation, the oasis featured a large parking area and a quaint little building where one would typically find tourist maps, brochures for all the state’s parks and attractions, a helpful employee to guide you on your way, and most importantly, restrooms.
But it was not to be. We and the other desperate travelers at the rest area found the quaint little building shut and locked, with no sign indicating hours of operation. It was 12:30 in the afternoon on a Monday.
Given the time of day, I thought perhaps the station had only a single employee who had to close the building while they went to lunch.
But my mind was not yet ready to tackle such musings. I was thinking of one thing only. I spotted three port-o-potties standing alongside the parking area, and briskly strolled over to them. I opened each door and found the first repulsive, the second repulsiver, and the third, Oh My God. They clearly had been neglected for some time. What was going on here?
Further exploration brought me to another small building that contained only vending machines and a trash can. The can was overflowing with trash stacked atop it, and people had started politely placing their garbage and empty water bottles on the floor around it.
I was out of options. Immediate action was required. Along with all the other tourists and truck drivers at the rest stop, I did what had to be done. In my case, I went behind the concession building and relieved myself there.
Only then was I able to start analyzing what had occurred. The rest area was closed, surely due to a lack of staff and/or maintenance funds. As a result, dozens of people per hour were peeing on the ground or just beyond the first set of trees. Note to the chubby fella from Boston: the kids could see you.
I later researched the NHDOT web site, and learned that this particular rest stop – on the state’s major north-south highway – is only open on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Three days per week. The other four days of the week, the public has two options: either the Trio of Terror port-o-potties, or the ground at their feet.
As desperate as my situation had been, at least I was able to complete my task by hiding behind a building. Much less fortunate are the scores of women, elderly, and disabled who visit that rest stop on a daily basis, only to find locked doors on four days out of every seven. No laughing matter there.
The good public workers of New Hampshire do a fine job, as does the state Department of Transportation. They don’t control the agency’s funding; the legislature does. New Hampshire has always been a stingy state; with no hint of irony, New Hampshire’s politicians call their utter lack of a tax base “The New Hampshire Advantage.” Now, with a legislature controlled by the fringe-of-the-fringe-of-the-wack-job-faction-of-the-right-wing, things can only get worse.
So indeed, it appears that New Hampshire’s inadequate budgets have led to mass public urination. Hilariously, it occurs just yards from public restrooms.
As governments at the federal, state, and local levels face the revenue squeeze of the recession, the two opposing policy agendas that have emerged could best be summarized as cut a lot, and cut a lot more. Public restrooms will face the same fate as all other public services, such as parks, libraries, and schools: increasingly curtailed operations or outright closure. Less recreation, less reading, less learning, more tinkling in open spaces.
People in urban areas are already intimately familiar with the sights and smells associated with public urination. Visit a parking garage or subway station in any major city and you will be, too.
Speaking of subway systems, New York City’s subway system has 468 stations, but only 129 restrooms. A 2010 investigation by amNewYork uncovered the following:
While transit records list 129 bathrooms, about 60 of them were locked or converted to other station uses like storage, amNewYork found.
“I guess I’ll have to hold it in until I get home,” said Jeff Reuben, 41, a Manhattan straphanger.
Of the open bathrooms, a third were frightening caverns of garbage, urine, standing water or unseemly smells. Odors from the Astoria-Ditmars Blvd. station on the N caused an amNewYork reporter to feel faint during a recent visit.
In other words, NYC has about 40 usable, non-horrifying restrooms in its 468-station subways system.
A shortage of public restrooms has a number of impacts. Travelers are less likely to visit areas that lack sufficient facilities – especially families with children, the elderly, and others with specific concerns about ease of access to toilets. Want to get more people to visit? Have a sufficient number of places for little Johnny and Grandma to take a whiz. The health issues associated with a lack of facilities are not just those based on exposure to the urine and feces left behind by others; having to “hold it” while seeking a place to relieve yourself is also a serious health concern.
There are some who take this very seriously. The American Restroom Association, for example, advocates the mandatory placement of restroom facilities in all outdoor public venues.
Austerity budgets are the vehicle that brings the olfactory sensations we associate with New York City alleys to the grassy roadsides of New Hampshire. As the politicians – especially the daycare center in business suits known as the Tea Party – continue to coo and gurgle over tax cuts and slashing public budgets, we will increasingly find ourselves doing literally what they do only figuratively – pissing on the commons.