[hamburgerwah]

The HN crowd loves to promote urbanization, density, blah blah blah. The fact that such an app exists at all is de facto proof of a failed city. Just a comic level of dysfunction. "NYC, we're so progressive we can't even address the basic requirements to support human life"

[jdavis703]

In my experience suburbs and rural areas are even worse for public bathroom access (and even delivery of most other public goods except education). Are there US suburbs with plentiful public bathrooms?

[desert_boi]

What's a suburb? Depending on the level of density and sentiment about public parks (poor people's lawns v. a public good), some relatively low density places are better about public bathrooms. Boise is something like 5K people per sq. mile downtown, but there's public bathrooms at regular intervals on the Greenbelt in places at lower 3K densities.

As homelessness has gotten worse though, there's been noticeable encampments/vehicle caravans building up at these bathrooms.

[wffurr]

I don't think "the HN crowd" has anything close to such a consensus. But I do think you could find broad agreement that cities should have more sanitary facilities in general.

[booleandilemma]

Part of the problem in NYC is any time you offer any kind of community utility/service it invariably gets taken over by the homeless population. Benches become beds, libraries become bedrooms, cell phone charging stations become encampments.

[haliskerbas]

Almost sounds like the bigger and more complex issue is homelessness rather than people with homes not being able to find a convenient bathroom.

[yusuke242424]

True. I was surprised by the number of homeless people in NY. Especially in the train.

[isoskeles]

Yeah, it's an unfortunate, "This is why we can't have nice things," situation. I would really love the idea of having public restrooms both for convenience for anyone who is out and about, and to allow homeless people to have some amount of dignity about being able to relieve themselves.

But you're right, it invariably gets taken over and becomes disgusting. And all the solutions I can think of are quite dystopian, like having a video camera that watches you in the bathroom so it can detect any kind of foul play.

[yusuke242424]

I would pay 5-10$ to use a bathroom when emergency.

[Teknoman117]

Yeah. I always make sure to hit a restroom before driving through a city. Few things suck as much as feeling the call of nature while you're stuck on surface streets in the middle of a big city. Where are you going to be able to temporarily park your car and where is the restroom.

In the less dense zones, it's just stop at the next gas station/mcdonalds/starbucks/whatever. Less dense than that, just run into the woods...

[yusuke242424]

I learned to pee before going out in NY. This is a mandatory action. Also decided to not hold until the last minute.

[yusuke242424]

I agree. I was frustrated about bathroom and internet connection between train stations. In Tokyo we can use internet in the subway. NY cannot.

[mindvirus]

NYC has plenty of reasonably well maintained public restrooms, they can just be hard to find if you don't know where they are.

[yusuke242424]

True. Especially it’s hard to find at night time as they close around 8 or 10pm. Where should drunk people pee at night time?

[yuppie_scum]

The fact that the HN crowd has to politicize a pretty carefree and lighthearted human interest story is amazing too.