PORTLAND, Maine — A few years back, Cary Tyson conducted a bathroom experiment. He downed several bottles of water, then set off walking across the city’s downtown to see how far it was to the nearest public restroom.
The answer was urgent: Too far.
“Ideally, it should only be two or three minutes — five at the most,” said Tyson, executive director of Downtown Portland, a nonprofit city-center improvement organization funded by a special business tax overlay. “But it was a lot further than that.”
Thus began Tyson’s quest to develop better, more numerous downtown restrooms. That effort is ramping up this month as his organization begins developing a master plan for Portland’s public restrooms, which would be the first of its kind in Maine. To guide the effort, his group is hosting an online forum next week featuring an international public toilet expert.
“Best I can tell, [this master restroom plan] will be one of the few in the country,” he said.
The virtual event is open to the public and scheduled for Tuesday Feb. 13 at 5:30 p.m.
Judging by the number of people already signed up, Tyson isn’t the only Portlander interested in the (bladder) pressing topic.
“We already have 77 people on the list,” he said, “and I’m guessing, based upon history, that we’ll have a lot more register in the next few days.”
Registered stakeholders include downtown business owners, tour guides, residents, folks from the cruise ship industry and advocates for the unhoused. Tyson and his staff will take ideas and proposals from the forum and fold them into a draft master plan, which will then get submitted to city government for approval and eventual funding.
Tyson said he expects to have a finished draft in about a month.
Downtown Portland was already involved in organizing installation of four waterless vault toilets around the city in 2022, at a cost of $200,000. Those toilets were funded by the city’s pot of American Rescue Plan Act funds. Portland is also still looking to spend around $400,000 in ARPA funds renovating the restrooms inside the city-owned Spring Street parking garage, which have been closed for years.
Currently, the only flush public toilets near downtown are at the Casco Bay Ferry Lines terminal on Commercial Street and at the Portland Public Library on Congress Street. Vault toilets are available on the far end of Commercial Street, by the Fish Pier and on Spring Street. Deering Oaks Park has no toilet this winter.
But Tyson thinks those improvements were only a start. He wants to see even better, cleaner and more numerous restrooms in Portland. What form they take will depend on how much money the city makes available. He said the best-case scenario would see either employee-monitored, flush-toilet facilities or self-cleaning, pod-like toilet kiosks.
Either one will not be cheap, with water and electricity bills to pay after construction or purchase. Still, Tyson said this is an important issue for the city, which should be taken seriously.
To help the public and city officials understand the importance of developing a master public toilet plan, and learn what other cities have done toward solving similar problems, Portland Downtown has hired an expert to help lead the online discussion.
Lezlie Lowe is a Halifax, Nova Scotia-based journalist and professor, and author of 2018’s “No Place to Go: How Public Toilets Fail Our Private needs.”
Lowe’s interest in the subject started while trying to navigate downtown Halifax with her children.
“I had a toddler and an infant, and I found I was chained down by their toilet needs,” she said.
Lowe’s constant, and mostly vain, searches for public restrooms led to research on the subject, a lengthy article for a local newspaper and, eventually, the book.
Lowe said the lack of public city toilets is an issue of equity because their absence disproportionately affects less-advantaged people, including mothers, people with mobility issues, senior citizens and anyone with chronic gastrointestinal conditions — not to mention the unhoused.
According to Lowe, cities like Portland have always relied on the private sector to solve this problem, assuming the public can use toilets at coffee shops, restaurants and hotels. But a quick walk through Portland’s Old Port or down Congress Street reveals dozens of “sorry, no public restroom” signs taped to business doors.
Portland’s lack of public toilets is a solvable problem, at least in the heart of the tourist and business district represented by Portland Downtown, Lowe said.
“Irving gas stations and malls have already done it,” she said, “because they want people to stay as long as possible. They don’t have restrooms out of the kindness of their hearts. This should go for downtowns, too.”
Lorraine Rupp and Diane Slotboom, both from Salt Lake City, walked by the vault public toilet on Spring Street on Wednesday afternoon. Looking up from the tourist map one held, both were surprised to see the free facility.
“It’s nice. There are no public toilets where we come from,” Rupp said.
Slotboom agreed.
“We’re over 60,” she said. “We never pass one up.”