By Michael V. Cusenza
Mayor Eric Adams on Monday launched “Ur in Luck,” a new effort to expand New Yorkers’ access to public restrooms across all five boroughs.
Yes, you guessed it: including in Flushing.
Over the next five years, the City Department of Parks and Recreation will build 46 new restrooms and renovate 36 existing restrooms, adding to the Big Apple’s nearly 1,000 existing public restrooms. Once all the restrooms are complete, 10 are slated to be placed in the Bronx, 23 in Brooklyn, 28 in Manhattan, 14 in Queens, and seven on Staten Island. The 36 existing restrooms being renovated will receive improvements ranging from additional stalls to accessibility upgrades, as well as energy efficient features.
At the same time, the City is making wayfinding to the public restrooms a priority before summer officially begins by introducing a new Google Maps layer (google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?hl=en&ll=40.714039572379214%2C-74.01470229249028&mid=15bUbaKsobajdGL6HLmUpmBuZ_6ILtVQ&utm_medium=email&utm_name&utm_source=govdelivery&z=16) that New Yorkers can activate on their phones to find the locations of every public restroom operated by a wide-range of agencies and civic institutions citywide.
According to Adams, the Google Maps layer—which will be updated biannually—will include restrooms operated by NYC Parks, DOT, the Metropolitan Transit Authority, the city’s ‘privately-owned public spaces,’ and all three of the city’s library systems — the New York Public Library, the Brooklyn Public Library, and the Queens Public Library. The city has also created a series of advertisements, available online, which will run on LinkNYC kiosks and on Taxi TVs from June through September and help guide New Yorkers on how to access this resource. Data on the city’s public restrooms will be available on Open Data to enable the public to build their own tools leveraging this data and to conduct analysis around the city’s public restrooms, using one consistent, reliable, and updated data set of the city’s restrooms.
Finally, the city is establishing a joint taskforce — which will bring city departments together under the leadership of Chief Public Realm Officer Liu — to assist in siting and fast-tracking approvals for 14 new high-tech, self-cleaning automatic public toilets on city sidewalks and plazas in collaboration with DOT’s Coordinated Street Furniture franchisee JCDecaux.
Last month, NYC Parks completed its expansion of new baby changing tables to all public restrooms in city parks, where feasible — more than three years ahead of schedule. NYC Parks has opened seven new restrooms to the public in the past five months at:
- Maspeth Park
- Bronx Point/Mill Pond Park
- Starlight Park, Bronx
- Wyckoff House Park, Brooklyn
- Frederick Johnson Playground, Manhattan
- Highbridge Park Adventure Playground, Manhattan
- Lopez Playground, Staten Island
“Today we launch a historic initiative to provide clean, accessible public restrooms to all New Yorkers,” said Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar (D-Woodhaven). “We will build or renovate over 80 public restrooms across all five boroughs, making them accessible, inviting, and energy efficient. We are also adding changing tables wherever feasible, providing a vital resource to parents. Best of all, New Yorkers will now be able to locate their nearest restroom in Google Maps. Taken together, this initiative will ensure every New Yorker of every ability always has relief in sight.”
