A public bathroom will be installed soon at Avenue C Plaza, located at the intersection of Avenue C and McDonald Avenue.
Seventeen modular bathrooms will be installed in public plazas and high-traffic public spaces in the five boroughs for a year-long pilot program. Two of the seventeen are already in place, one at Fulton Street and Truxton Street in Brooklyn and the other at 34th Avenue and 64th Street in Queens.
Throne Labs produces, delivers, and installs the units. It provides all maintenance and cleaning services; a local operations team cleans the bathrooms after every ten to fifteen uses.
The company also provides supplies, and it does any repairs that are needed.
The bathrooms are free to use. They will be available every day from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., with a ten-minute time limit per use.
Warnings are sounded at five minutes and eight minutes to tell you that your ten minutes are almost up. After ten minutes, lights flash. An announcement in English and Spanish tells you that the door is about to open ("Attention: Your use time has expired. The door is opening now."). After that, you have about thirty seconds more before the door actually opens.
To enter the bathrooms, you can use either a text message, a QR code, the Throne Bathroom Network app, or a tap card that does not require a phone. The tap cards are distributed by local community partners.
The app has additional functions; it allows members of the public to find the location of the nearest public bathroom, check cleanliness ratings, and find out if the bathrooms are available for use.
The modular bathrooms are self-contained, not needing a connection to the city's water, sewer, or power infrastructures, which also makes the portable. They're solar-powered to provide heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer.
The bathrooms are compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, containing an entry ramp and a grab bar.
The fixtures are touch-free, including the lighting, the faucet and the soap dispenser, and the toilet that flushes when you wave at it. To open the door to exit, wave your hand at the door.
Free menstrual products are available, as is a table for changing a baby's diaper or clothing.
The cost to rent, clean, and maintain the seventeen units for a year is $4,000,000. The cost to build a traditional bricks-and-mortar public bathroom is about $4 million.
