Smell you later, self-cleaning toilets
More than six months and 100 blog posts ago, I wrote a lengthy rant complaining about the crime and homelessness plaguing Broadway on Capitol Hill. One of my key criticisms (which had also been pointed out by someone else in a letter to the editor published at SLOG) was of the self-cleaning public restroom, located just past Bonney Watson Funeral Home and Seattle Central Community College.Now the issue is back in the spotlight, after Seattle Public Utilities announced yesterday its recommendation that the City Council approve removal of the five self-cleaning crappers scattered around the city. Yup...It took them four years, but city officials have finally realized what most of us who walk the streets have known from day one: self-cleaning toilets are a nice idea, but one that fails miserably upon execution.
You can't blame the city for trying new things, though...especially when their ideas have been proven to work elsewhere. From The Times:
Council President Richard Conlin said he voted to install the toilets after seeing their success in Europe, where "everybody uses them."The problem is that in all its old world glory, Europe is far more disciplined, and in some ways more civilized, than the United States. Issues that have worked well for them (socialized healthcare, marijuana decriminalization, a fully-functional and near flawless railway system) are simply unwanted or ineffective - and sometimes both - in America.
"They are a middle-class phenomenon," he said. "We thought we could impose that."
Plus, homelessness isn't nearly as prevalent across the pond: according to the United Nations, the entire European Union has around 3 million homeless...compared to the United States, where government figures suggest as many as 3.5 million within our borders alone. While I value the city's willingness to experiment with new sanitation options, we cannot realistically expect that a system proven effective in a culture vastly different from our own would have the same positive outcomes across the board.
Of course, don't tell that to Tim Harris of Real Change, whose idealistic approach to homeless equality is a prime example of how dangerous human emotion can be when we allow it to trample over reason. Harris' argument? That not only do we need these five silver dens of debauchery...we need more public toilets. Quoted in The Times:
Removing toilets would force people to relieve themselves in streets and alleys, Harris said.At his blog, Harris continues the verbal diarrhea:
"If you don't provide alternatives and viable alternatives, then it's not fair to blame people for activities that they have little choice but to engage in," he said.
I actually went into this whole conspiratorial rant about how they'll take the toilets away, and then when the whole downtown smells like a Belltown alley on a hot summer day and there's shit on every doorstep, we'll hear all about the filthy, disgusting, homeless people who are too lazy to even find their way to the bathroom.Maybe she didn't use it because it's total nonsense. Tim, I know you mean well, but you're approaching this from an angle that values the homeless perspective above all: above safety for the greater community, above fiscal responsibility and above respect for urban progress. That may be a feasible position for an individual such as yourself to hold...but it is a dangerous one for an entire community.
But for some reason she didn't use that.
Then again, Harris' vision of a putrid downtown core might have some unexpected benefits. If the people of Seattle were faced with unsanitary conditions at the hands of bums who treat the city as their personal playground, maybe we would all wake up to the fact that we can't allow this subculture of homelessness that we've tolerated thus far to continue prospering.
If Seattle really wants to grow into its own, Mayor Nickels should call up Rudy Giuliani and ask him what he did to get rid of the homeless during his time as New York City's mayor. I'm guessing it wasn't centered around the widespread installation of self-cleaning toilets.
"The problem is that in all its old world glory, Europe is far more disciplined, and in some ways more civilized, than the United States. Issues that have worked well for them (socialized healthcare, marijuana decriminalization, a fully-functional and near flawless railway system) are simply unwanted or ineffective - and sometimes both - in America."
The entire German nation is in therapy, they really need to invade somebody soon, the've banned homeschooling, and it is illegal to wave a flag without a de-nazification certificate,
they use other people's assault weapons despite the fact the domestic articles are the last work in sturm chic. mostly they can relate to the collective well-of earth tremor a la panzer column.
We know its not the winning, it's the taking part that's important to them.
As for self-cleaning toilets, as for most overly engineered high quality items, they're a bastard when they freeze up twelves miles short of Moscow.
What Giuliani did to clean up the homeless problem in New York was to give them one way bus tickets to head west, most notably San Francisco and Santa Monica. Same thing Atlanta did to sparkle for the Olympics in '96. That's why there are so many homeless out here on the "left" coast. They did not come here for the weather, they were just told to get out of Dodge. I noticed it when I lived in San Francisco and saw a lot of Braves, Mets and Yankees baseball caps!
I loved the self-cleaning toilets in Paris. They were always clean and available. I didn't have to spend $6 on a soda to justify the use of some cafe's bathroom.
Maybe another difference is that Paris charged a non-negligible fee for use of the toilets, like a $1.50 or so. (I take it the Seattle ones were free?) Maybe usage fees would have helped.
JvA,
Yes, the Seattle ones were free. Though I agree with you: if we had a fee for using these toilets and didn't place them in areas where they could be abused, that would have definitely made the situation more tolerable.
"I loved the self-cleaning toilets in Paris. They were always clean and available. I didn't have to spend $6 on a soda to justify the use of some cafe's bathroom."
Helped, Why? furrin people who skipped in without paying or knowing got disinfected, you think that was funny?
What sort of a person are you to think like that.
So how many well-washed migrants from eastern Europe did it take before the authorities decided to act?
They had to make thewm free or something, they should have thought about that first. It is a darn shame if you can't afford a piss, that's what I say and I'm a free enterprise strictly non-commie kind of tea leaf.
The French have in the past been far too insensitive to the needs of people such as myself. That's not a criticism, it is just a statement of fact supported by a few medical bills I saved to wipe my arse on once I got over the shock.
I was out of hospital, after a thing in Cannes, some dickhead with one of those face masks, not a bank roobber or anything, a non-bank robber, a parking space taker, with a mask! probably had an arts grant to bump my car.
I was play-drowning him in a foutain when the Gendarmes told me to stop in French, obviously in French, but there was this van with a speaker,
I didn't hear, anyway I get clubbed on the head, by the cops, the water goes all red, I make one final stab at real-drowning the face mask sucker and pass out. I was the real victim, as you can see.
I'm so beat up when I get out of hospital, I can't really walk, never have an argument with a disguised motorist about shit, I bet he was Italian, he gargled like one, tell them to stay in New York, anyway
I'm not disabled enough to get a seat on the train, there is twelve people better qualified, I wasn't wounded at Verdun, or tortured by the Gestapo, with the French, it ain't how disabled you are, it is how you got disabled!
Well, trying to drown an eyetie in Cannes isn't up their with the medals. I know enough that if a pregnant lady with (patriotic) bullet wounds needs a seat, I know this already,
I would give her mine, why have a notice telling me to do it?
The thing about the French, leaving aside their massively ornate frigging ego, is that you don't have to have fought at Dien Bien Phu to have a shit in a little space ship, fair play to them for being reasonable.
My Missing Arm Beats Your Missing Foot
A small sticker above each section of four seats reminds passengers that they are to relinquish their seat if any passenger really needs that seat.
http://metrostories.blogspot.com/2005_04_10_archive.html
That guy has it pat.
It's like that, bring your purple hearts.
Tazia