User:JustinePorto/Public toilets in Washington

Public toilets in Washington, often called washrooms, are found at a rate of 24 per 100,000 people. Some were constructed to address sanitation issues. There were pay public toilets during the 1950s and 1960s, but those were almost gone by the 1980s. The lack of public toilets in the 2000s along Interstate 90 during the 2000s caused problems for long haul truckers.

= Public toilets = washroom is one of the most commonly used words for public toilet in the United States.

A 2021 study found there were 24 public toilets per 100,000 people. Seattle had 119 public toilets in 2021. Public toilets are often located in semi-private public accommodations like hotels, stores, restaurants and coffee shops instead of being street level municipal maintained facilities.

Toilets: A Spotter’s Guide published in 2016 included a public toilet at Mount Shuksan with views of Mount Baker.

History
Dr. L. L. Lumsden and his coworkers at the Public Health Service did a house-to-house survey of sanitation conditions in 18 counties located across 16 different stated between 1914 and 1917. The results of the survey helped convince local governments in West Virginia, Indiana and Washington that investing in public toilets was a good investment for their communities.

An October 4, 1917 law in Washington required industrial camps to have toilets "located convenient to the bunk houses, and as far removed from the kitchen and eating house as may be practical."

In the 1900s and 1910s, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Denver, Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Toledo, Worcester, Salt Lake City, Providence, Binghamton, Hartford, Wilkes-Barre, Scranton, Portland and the District of Columbia all built underground public toilets, most located in the city center in the local business district. The prestige of building underground public comfort stations was so high that some towns and cities who were unable to afford underground public toilets opted for none instead.

Seattle was one of the largest cities in the United States in 1950 at a time when most big cities operated pay public toilets. The fee to access these toilets was around a nickel or a dime, with the money earned being invested back into toilet maintenance and upkeep. By 1980, coin-operated toilets had almost disappeared from the public landscape.

After Seattle paid $5 million for automated public toilets aimed at reducing public defecation in the early 2000s, individual toilets were being sold for around USD$12,000 each as the local government had not allocated sufficient resources to maintain public toilet sites.

The lack of public toilets along the western part of Interstate 90 during the 2000s caused problems for long haul truckers. Their solution was often to pee into bottles and then leave them along the road in bushes. Sometimes, road maintenance crews and mowers would run over them as they could not see them in the high grass, resulting in a shower of warm, stale urine. As a result of truckers doing this, the state of Washington change their law around littering to impose a fine of up to USD$1,025 so they could better protect maintenance workers.

The city of Seattle spent around USD$5 million on public toilets in 2004. By 2008, they had removed them after numerous complaints from local residents because they were perceived as being dirty and dangerous.

After North Carolina banned people from using public toilets that matched with their gender identity and required people use the public toilet that matched with their sex in 2016, the state considered banning travel by state employees paid paid by the state to North Carolina.

Delivery people in Seattle had problems finding public toilets to use during the covid-19 pandemic as many places temporarily closed or closed their toilet facilities to the general public. To address this, the city set up 32 portable toilets in various places around the city to complement the existing 107 found in public parks.