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Seattle Flushes $5M High-Tech Toilets
theodp writes "Hopes were high back in 2004 as Seattle's posh public potties opened for business. But four years later, city officials have said good riddance to the five high-tech toilets, self-cleaning and cylindrical, that had cost Seattle $5 million. The city unloaded them on eBay for just $12,549. The commodes had become filthy hide-outs for drug use and prostitution."
I'm guessing you have never been to the downtown east side in Vancouver.
They are not even close to decriminalized. Just because they have one safe injection site does not mean that the police won't arrest you for dealing. It also does not mean they won't arrest you if they catch you using drugs in public.
The reality of the downtown east side is that injection drug use is so rampant that the police couldn't arrest everyone who did it even if they wanted to. The single safe injection site isn't even close to large enough and neither are the detox centers. The result is that the dug users still shoot up in the alleys.
How can it be decriminalised in Vancouver? Drug use and prostitution is a federal offense written in the criminal code of Canada, no city law can change or overrule that.
There was an article on this in the NY Times a couple of weeks ago. In addition to drug use and prostitution, people would leave so much trash in the toilets that the automatic scrubbers had to be disabled or they jammed on the trash... and as a result, the toilets became so disgusting that even the druggies avoided them.
""I'm not going to lie: I used to smoke crack in there," said one homeless woman, Veronyka Cordner, nodding toward the toilet behind Pike Place Market. "But I won't even go inside that thing now. It's disgusting.""
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/us/17toilets.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=seattle%20public%20toilet&st=cse&oref=slogin
IMO, the reason this works in other countries but not in the U.S. has nothing to do with our "puritanical mindset": instead, it's because Americans have no concept of public common space. We feel that everything on Earth is for our exclusive personal use until someone tries to stop us.
That's an interesting question.
Last I heard (and I have seen evidence of this) is that Wal-Mart effectively has an official company policy that RVs and similar vehicles are allowed to park in their parking lots overnight, even for extended periods. Most other businesses would call the cops or chase the RVs away.
The rationale for Wal-Mart? The people in that camper parked in the parking lot are likely going to go for the most convenient supply shopping available.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
The reason they can't open the doors after a couple of minutes has to do with ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act). At least that is according to Norman Augustine in Augustine's Laws. By law the toilets must be accessible to handicapped persons. It can take a handicapped person a long time to get there business done.
Another reason it fails in the U.S. is that it has a much larger homeless and mentally ill population roaming the streets of its major cities than just about any other first-world country I can name.
IT's against state law in Washington to charge for public toliets. Otherwise, they probably would have a small fee.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Please RTFA. Among other details:
a) The self-cleaning broke down somewhere during the 4 years
b) It already has a time-limit (15 minutes) after which it simply opens the door
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Though the 'access gratuit' sanisettes in Paris are only open from 06:00 to 22:00, and it is not (or was not when I was there a couple of months ago) uncommon to see them out of use.
As a Parisian, I can tell you that the people here will probably not move their finger to prevent druggies and prostitutes in toilets. But the cops will.
I think the issue in Seattles is the classic political correctness of Americans:
Toilets had to be accessible to disabled people.
Due to that requirement, you end up with huge toilets, which, by definition, have more use than the Parisian sanisette (I think that if a prostitute went with customers in a sanisette, there would probably be people outside clapping their hands when they would come out, due to sheer awesomeness of such an act).
Also, being huge, Seattles sanisettes were costly, so they ended up with only 5. 5 is a very small number, so of course they have been broken very fast.
In Paris, sanisettes are NOT accessible to disabled people. There are special ones that ARE accessible, but those are NOT accessible to the general public (you need a specific card), so they are kept in a correct state.
That is not politically correct. But it works.
The term used by RV'ers is "outrigging", living out of their camper/RV without hooking up to city water/power (some of the rigs are nice, but occasionally you get someone with a 1972 Winnebago with dry rot).
However, not all Wal-Marts are welcoming them with open arms these days. I've seen two with more restrictive policies, one banning them outright, while another has sections of their parking lots that are off limits to outriggers.
From personal observation, however, it seems to me that if you could afford a running RV (you can easily get one in adequate operating condition for less than $2,000), you could afford a spot at a campground for $400 a month. Hardly what any reasonable person would consider exhorbitant. They aren't too bad either, you get sewage disposal, fresh water, electricity and even cable in some places as part of the bargain. While many have restrictions on how long you can stay, if you have a good record with the owners, you probably could renew pretty quickly.
I spent a few months living out of a 18' trailer myself, and while running the water heater was a pain in the butt on cold mornings, it was fairly comfortable. Your mileage may vary.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
that that is the absolute dumbest thing I have ever heard anyone say in my entire life.
You must not get out much then.
Simply speaking, there's two types of addiction. Physiological and Psychological. Physiological is where actual changes to body chemistry occur, and bad things can happen when you withdraw. A severe alcohol addict can experience delirium tremens. Heroin can have some very bad side effects from withdrawal.
Then you have Psychological addictions. These are the people who get addicted to gambling, world of warcraft, the internet, etc... Not to say that they don't crave their addiction, but it doesn't have the body factor that Physiological does.
On the topic of the toilets - well, I'd consider them an experiment that didn't work out as well as they hoped.
I don't read AC A human right
Have you ever smoked marijuana? If so, were you immediately hooked? Have you ever known anyone that has smoked marijuana recreationaly (meaning every once in a while) for several years and then needed it so bad they started sucking cock for it? I doubt it. The truth is that if I was forced to smoke weed 5 times a day for the next month, I could then stop and never smoke it again. You know why? Because the drug is not addictive and I don't happen to like the "high" that weed gives me. In fact, I would look forward to the day I was allowed to stop.
Frankly, your complete lack of understanding of the difference between physical and psychological addiction is astounding. Also, it is ignorance like yours which keeps a drug that is no more (maybe less) harmful than alcohol, and possibly beneficial to a great many people, illegal.
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.