NYC to add dozens of new public restrooms — but more relief may be needed
Relief may be finally trickling in.
Mayor Eric Adams touted the planned addition of a few dozen new public restrooms in the Big Apple Monday — but the city is still falling short of its to duty to boost the number of toilets across the five boroughs.
The administration announced a five-year effort — dubbed “Ur in Luck” — to add 46 bathrooms across the city and renovations of 36 of the existing public restrooms.
“Part of making New York City a more livable city is tackling the little things — the things we don’t think about until we need them,” Adams said. “Access to public restrooms is high on that list, maybe even number one or two.”
Manhattan will see an additional 28 and Brooklyn will get 23, while 14 are slated for Queens, 10 for The Bronx and seven for Staten Island. Still, the city has a long way to go for New Yorkers who got to go – with nearly 100 more restrooms to go to hit a 151 goal recommended in a 2022 report.
The “Ur in Luck” plan also calls for a task force to streamline the approval process to add 14 automatic self-cleaning restrooms over the next two years.
The high-tech toilets are slated to come through the French company JCDecaux, which has more than 2,500 toilets in 28 countries.
New Yorkers are now able to find a stall on the go with a new layer to Google Maps tracking all the more than 1,000 public restrooms around the city.
“As a strong advocate for increasing access to public restrooms, I am thrilled to support Mayor Adams’ ‘Ur In Luck’ initiative,” said Councilmember Rita Joseph (D-Brooklyn).
The support from the councilmember, who was not at the event, was a sharp departure from last week when she skewered Department of Transport (DOT) officials on their lagging efforts to add 151 bathrooms.
Instead, Joseph introduced a bill last week that would force the administration to meet the full expansion outlined in the multi-agency report that she commissioned under a 2022 bill.
Calls to the council member’s office were not returned.
