{"id":393955,"date":"2026-07-10T21:53:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T21:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/393955\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T21:53:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T21:53:10","slug":"too-much-traffic-not-enough-toilets-sf-city-officials-revisit-fourth-of-july-mishaps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/393955\/","title":{"rendered":"Too Much Traffic, Not Enough Toilets: SF City Officials Revisit Fourth of July Mishaps"},"content":{"rendered":"

Beyond problems with public transit and gridlock traffic, the city failed to provide enough restrooms for the flood of people that came to see the special fireworks show. <\/p>\n

Jul 10, 2026<\/p>\n

Updated 2:36 pm PT<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A lack of restrooms at the Fourth of July fireworks show in San Francisco led to wait times of up to two hours, according to festivalgoers. There were an estimated 787 people for each toilet available at San Francisco\u2019s Fourth of July event.
\n
\n\u00a0(Courtesy of Declan Galli)<\/p>\n

Galli was one of many who decided to take their chances on San Francisco\u2019s notoriously foggy Fourth of July to see what he hoped would be a fun show: the city planned to launch fireworks from the Golden Gate Bridge instead of its usual location on Fisherman\u2019s Wharf in honor of America\u2019s 250th anniversary.<\/p>\n

But upon arriving at the Marina Green, he was met with a different kind of spectacle. Galli described long bathroom lines snaking down Marina Boulevard and law enforcement officials attempting to control the significant queue of people waiting to use the facilities.<\/p>\n

Galli said he saw children and adults in significant discomfort because of how long they had been waiting to use the restroom.<\/p>\n

\"\"People gather and cook food at Torpedo Wharf on Saturday, July 4, 2026, in San Francisco. For the third time in history, San Francisco will fire fireworks off the Golden Gate Bridge in celebration of America\u2019s 250th birthday. (Florence Shen\/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aMy one friend was basically doing the potty dance because they were like, \u2018I have to pee so bad, like so, so bad,\u2019\u201d Galli said.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aI definitely saw a few kids, that said, they needed to pee bad, and people were nice enough to let them in, but it would be really hard if you had kids at that event because there were very few bathrooms,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

Galli estimated there were between five and 10 portable restrooms available for public use where he waited at Little Marina Green. Eventually, he said, Recreation and Parks Department staff opened up the permanent bathrooms there, in an attempt to ease the significant lines.<\/p>\n

Despite arriving two hours before the show began, he said he spent so long waiting in line that he missed the first five minutes of the 15-minute show.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we started missing the fireworks, that was disappointing for sure,\u201d Galli said.<\/p>\n

He added that the experience left him feeling like there was no unified communication or planning for the major city event.<\/p>\n

When questioned about how many temporary toilets were made available for the event, Charles Lutvak, spokesperson for Mayor Daniel Lurie, referred inquiries to the city\u2019s Recreation and Parks Department.<\/p>\n

Providing restrooms along the waterfront was a citywide effort, including properties under the jurisdiction of Rec and Parks, the Port of San Francisco and the National Park Service, according to Daniel Montes, communications manager for Rec and Parks.<\/p>\n

Montes said Rec and Parks provided 30 portable toilets and 12 permanent ones at the Marina Green, based on previous large-scale events such as Fleet Week, but said, \u201cdemand at this citywide event clearly exceeded available restroom capacity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe understand that long restroom lines are frustrating, and this experience will help inform our planning when coordinating future events of this scale,\u201d Montes said.<\/p>\n

The Port of San Francisco did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

In total, there were 127 toilets made available for public use for the Fourth of July show, according to Joshua Winchell, chief of communications and special park uses for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.<\/p>\n

Winchell said the park arranged for 60 portable toilets to complement its 27 permanent ones, and the city provided an additional 40 portable toilets. He also said the park saw \u201cunprecedented visitation driven by the city\u2019s historic fireworks display.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Spectators save their spot to watch fireworks displayed from the Golden Gate Bridge on July 4, 2026, in Sausalito, California. (Benjamin Fanjoy\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

He said that the 127 toilets were \u201cfar short\u201d of what was needed to support the attendees.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will work with the City of San Francisco and our other partners to ensure that enough bathrooms and other resources required for enjoyable park visits will be in place for future large-scale events, such as Fleet Week,\u201d Winchell said.<\/p>\n

The number of restrooms provided falls drastically short of industry standards for events, according to Vivienne Errington-Barnes, CEO and founder of the San Francisco-headquartered event planning company Shift + Alt Events \u2014 which she said has organized events with as many as 300,000 attendees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a simple, hard and fast rule for bathrooms. It\u2019s industry-wide and global. One bathroom per 65 people, and one bathroom per 50 people if they\u2019re drinking alcohol,\u201d Errington-Barnes said.<\/p>\n

Based on the GGNRA\u2019s estimate of toilets provided for the event and the city\u2019s estimate for total attendance, there was one restroom for every 787 people in attendance.<\/p>\n

\"\"Fireworks are displayed from the Golden Gate Bridge on July 4, 2026, in Sausalito, California. This year\u2019s fireworks were displayed from the Golden Gate Bridge for the third time in the bridge\u2019s history to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States. (Benjamin Fanjoy\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Errington-Barnes said that not having an appropriate number of restrooms can force people to publicly urinate and put pregnant and elderly people, as well as children and their parents, in difficult, embarrassing situations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s almost like it wasn\u2019t planned,\u201d Errington-Barnes said. \u201c\u200aEither they didn\u2019t know how many people were coming, or they had somebody produce it that just didn\u2019t understand that there is a very hard and fast rule.\u201d<\/p>\n

Galli said large events in San Francisco like the Fourth of July can be \u201creally fun,\u201d but said he\u2019d like to see better planning and communication, like a map of where bathrooms will be, for future city events.<\/p>\n

San Francisco Supervisor Stephen Sherrill, whose district includes the Marina, is calling for a hearing in September to ensure that this year\u2019s annual Fleet Week celebration, set to take place in the same area in October, has a \u201crobust operational plan to ensure success.\u201d<\/p>\n

That hearing will include planning for bathroom access, according to Jack Hebb, Supervisor Sherrill\u2019s communications director.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Beyond problems with public transit and gridlock traffic, the city failed to provide enough restrooms for the flood…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-393955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}