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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Portland toilets are pride of city

Kim Murphy Los Angeles Times

PORTLAND – Pity the lowly public toilet, a redolent reminder of the failure of the best minds in urban planning to address the most fundamental of daily necessities.

Millions have been invested in the facilities for collective relief. Often, they have become targets for graffiti, trash can fires, furtive needle activity, commercial lovemaking, emergency baths, laundries for the homeless, and repositories of castoff diapers.

Go to any city in America and ask whether it has fixed the public toilet problem, and most any city in America will hold its nose.

Except Portland.

Here, where just about everything is greener, hipper and more carbon-neutral, it was only a matter of time before someone came up with a sustainable urban toilet. It’s called the Portland Loo, and it may be the first toilet so popular it has its own Facebook page.

The solar-powered, 6-by-10 1/2 -foot street-corner cabin, ingeniously stripped of much of its plumbing and privacy, has been installed at six locations around Portland, from the city’s dodgiest centers for the homeless to an upscale waterfront where stay-at-home moms take their children to play.

So well has it eased into the urban landscape that Portland is looking to build and market Loos across the continent, hoping the profits will allow for the construction and maintenance of more at home. San Diego, Vancouver, Houston, Baltimore and Seattle all have expressed interest. The first official export was installed in Victoria, B.C., in November.

“I’m convinced Portland is the only city in the U.S., and maybe the world, that celebrates the opening of bathrooms,” City Commissioner Randy Leonard said at the dedication ceremony for the city’s fifth Loo, as students from a nearby school, whose art adorns the exterior wall, sang “Skip to My Lou.”

“We get calls all the time,” said project spokeswoman Anne Hill. “There’s a proven track record here: It’s in, and it’s working. And there is no other solution out there that’s been successful.”

Portland officials say the Loos buck many of the conventions of public toilets: They are not installed in out-of-the-way spots where no one will see them. Rather, most are placed along sidewalks in full public view.

They are not self-cleaning, but are made of prison-grade steel with plumbing so basic that they are almost impossible to damage, and a twice-a-day check by maintenance staff seems to keep them in good working order.

The only water faucet is on the outside, making customers less likely to linger for hair-washing or laundry.

Perhaps most important, they aren’t all that private. Louvered slats from foot level to knee level and again just above head level make activity inside somewhat visible, and audible, to passersby.

“We can see your trunk, but not your junk,” the Portland Loo Facebook page posted recently, adding, “Bwahahaha.”

To enter the Portland Loo with a mission in mind is to understand the Zen of utilitarian human biology. Function is all. There are no mirrors, no lavender sachets, no paper towel holders, no sink. Just four walls, a small dispenser of hand sanitizer and the reason you came: the steel, prison-grade toilet. The sounds of people chatting and laughing outside waft in disconcertingly between the slats. One feels the urge to act quickly and quietly, and move on.