Filthy bathrooms in refurbished Wilminton Delaware Station

[AmtrakBlue]

Who ever said nothing should be done? I was just making the rhetorical point that often, in our society, no good deed goes unpunished.

Amtrak should consider charging for the use of its bathrooms. Something like 25 or 50 cents would be enough to keep the riff raff out, and the revenue could help fund increased cleaning. I've seen this used all over Europe and it seems to work well.

Can you imagine all of the nasty letters people would send to their Congressmen if Amtrak instituted pay toilets? They would far outnumber the letters sent for dirty (but free) bathrooms.

Wait, so now we're not going to do anything because some congressman might get a nasty letter from a homeless person about it? What's the point of providing free but disgusting restrooms anyway? I avoid the restrooms here at the station in San Antonio for the exact same reason. Nobody ever seems to clean them. You can be the very first person to enter the station right as the staff unlock the front door and immediately walk over to the restroom and still find clogged toilets and sticky floors from the night before. Does that sound like an acceptable situation to you? Maybe Amtrak could add fifty cents or whatever to each O&D ticket. Maybe the station owner(s) could reach an agreement with a bathroom attendant or two whereby they keep the place clean in exchange for the ability to solicit tips during periods of heavy use. Maybe some sort of combination or amalgamation of these and other ideas would work. Or maybe we can simply remove the public restrooms altogether. That way nobody will ever have to read another nasty letter again.

And I don't think it would be the homeless writing the nasty letters, but the passengers who have to go to the trouble of finding change to pay.

 

[user 683]

Or they could even do something like the MTZ (Martinez, CA) station does (or at least did a few years ago when I was there).

The use of the rest rooms were free, but they had locks on them. To unlock it, you had to go up to the ticket counter to get a token. Then you insert the token into the lock (like you do for a pay toilet) and you can get in. And IIRC, they are only for Amtrak passengers (or perhaps non-passsengers had to pay, I'm not sure).

I like this idea and think it should be implemented system wide. But, consider the condition of some of the bathrooms on the train. The fact of the matter is folks need to remember they are not the only individuals using the restroom; be mindful of the next person who needs to use the bathroom.

 

[PaulM]

And I don't think it would be the homeless writing the nasty letters, but the passengers who have to go to the trouble of finding change to pay.

It's a cultural thing. American don't expect to pay for public restrooms, sort of like they don't expect to pay extra for mustard and ketchup at McDonald's

 

[Ispolkom]

It's a cultural thing. American don't expect to pay for public restrooms,

Not only do we not expect to pay for public restrooms, pay toilets are illegal in some places, such as Minnesota.

And it isn't as though pay toilets are any panacea. I've often encountered pay toilets in other countries filthy enough to make me wonder what exactly I was paying for. Several in Istanbul come to mind.

 

[me_little_me]

I think it is fitting that a place with stinking, dirty bathrooms be named after a politician.

Personally, I don't think any bridge, building, road or whatever be named after any politician until they are dead for a while. This accomplishes two things:

• It makes us think whether we really want to honor someone for figuring out that they can get us to pay for something and yet think of them as getting it for us.
• It encourages them to depart more quickly.

 

[Paul Dow]

Station renovation = capital expenditure

Ongoing cleaning of restrooms = operating expenditure

Just to add a bit of embellishment...

Station renovation = capital expenditure -> Politician can take credit for spending money confiscated from citizens as if it was given from them personally.

Ongoing cleaning of restrooms = operating expenditure -> Politician can't take credit for spending money for non-glamorous routine maintenance, so it doesn't get allocated.