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It's a proposed alternative to having no option at all. Restrooms are too expensive to maintain and prone to misuse to justify maintaining free options, which
by TeaBrain 2y ago
It's a proposed alternative to having no option at all. Restrooms are too expensive to maintain and prone to misuse to justify maintaining free options, which is why public restrooms have become virtually non-existent in US cities, following the eradication of pay restrooms. It is a much more moral option than giving the public no option at all, other than to become a customer at a business in order to be granted access to the business's restrooms, which would typically be far more expensive.
In some places, like Phoenix, the situation is currently so bad that even paying customers cannot use the restroom in some smaller shops, due to the large homeless population. Having any option at all, whatever the cost, would be a far better alternative.
- Amezarak 2y agoMaybe the "prone to misuse" bit is the problem, and we need to address the underlying issues there. In most of rural and suburban America, all public businesses have bathrooms freely available for the public (i.e., no asking for a key or whatever), and free, clean government-run public bathrooms exist in public spaces like parks or "downtown" areas. I see this slowly shifting, but obviously the problem is changing behaviors and not some feature of human nature.
- TeaBrain 2y agoI agree that it is largely an urban issue, but it is a serious issue, which likely exists in large part due to the greater density of urban homeless populations and drug related crime. Solving these problems is arguably far less trivial than re-establishing pay restrooms in the urban US.