A modular Portland Loo restroom is delivered to Hoyt Playground in Queens, one of five installed across the city as part of a pilot program to expand public bathroom access
Photo by NYC Parks / Daniel Avila.
Solving New York City’s public bathroom problem is not as easy as flushing a toilet.
For starters, this problem has existed for a long time, and City Hall’s efforts to solve it have gone through fits and starts. All the way back in 2006, 20 years ago, Mayor Mike Bloomberg agreed to a contract with Cemusa to build 20 automated public bathrooms across the city; just five would be built by 2022, and the others were locked up in storage.
In 2025, Mayor Eric Adams proudly unveiled the Portland Loo, five modular bathrooms installed across the city as part of a pilot program on expand public bathroom access. But the installation came with a hefty price tag — $1 million per toilet — and by that summer, at least one of the loos that amNewYork visited was in a very soiled state.
Earlier this year, Mayor Zohran Mamdani became the third mayor in 20 years to try and finally spur new public bathroom development. Mamdani announced in January a multi-million dollar program to “majorly scale up the number of public restrooms” in the city. His idea? Committing $4 million to a request for proposals to build up to 30 modular, self-cleaning public toilets in the months ahead.
If recent history is any indication, this idea will be far easier said than done. For two decades, City Hall has pitched many promises and pilot programs, but provided little concrete progress in providing New Yorkers with literal relief on the go.
And we might have to hold it in a little longer, given that City Hall now has to close a budget hole of up to $7.3 billion. Can the city really afford to pay $1 million a toilet, like the Portland Loo model installed last year? Is a model costing less even practical in an age where construction and plumbing costs are going up?
Expanding public bathroom access is tremendously important, but the city cannot shoulder the costs of building and maintaining them alone. It would make more sense for City Hall to expand access through public-private partnerships at businesses and office buildings around the city.
There are thousands of toilets across the city, within major business and shopping hubs, that are accessible only to the public. These bathrooms are functional and well-maintained with custodians regularly cleaning them as part of their daily responsibilities for building maintenance. The only problem is that the public is either forbidden to use them, or forced to buy something from a store to get an access code.
It would be far more practical for the mayor and the City Council to work together with the business community to increase public access to toilets at these hubs. Such a partnership would be good for businesses looking to increase their foot traffic, and good for those looking for a clean, comfortable place to find relief when they need it.
The city has tried, and tried again, to build out public bathrooms with little success over the last two decades. It’s time to try something different.