The NYC Dept of Transportation previewed models of the pay toilets that's coming to town somedy as part of a $1 billion deal with Spanish company Cemusa. These two different views show the inside--and the apparent absence of changing tables. Also, there's no mention in rather detailed description given in the NYT.
When I called the DOT Press office about it, they said that for such technically detailed information, I should talk to Cemusa directly--then they gave me the number of a guy at Edelman PR. Until I hear back from him, I'm just going put that down as 20 "Umm, no"'s.
A 25¢ Pedestrian Rest Stop, but Wait, It's a Model [nyt]
City unveils pay toilets of tomorrow[amny]
This City is driving me bonkers!!! Changing stations should be required by law in all new construction.
Pardon the expression, but this pay toilet thing is crap.
I was born in 1962 in NYC and every couple of years, the city talks about adding pay toilets to the landscape, but it never happens. N E V E R.
There's always a story that appears in the Times and the evening news where some hopeful European company demos there dee-luxx pay toilet that graces the streets of some city over there.
Or there is a competition for designs announced with great fanfare where the top three finshers (some blushing, hopeful architect or industrial designers), again, make the papers.
And then there is always a follow-up story months or years later about how the city has run out of money because the cost of the pissoirs has ballooned to $83,000,000 each since they have to be wheelchair accessible, polylingual, anti-bacterial, and non-discrimitory against transvestites, trangendered or suburbanites in their labelling. Or that a $0.25 charge discriminates against the homeless or otherwise impoverished. Aieee!
We will see a Giuliani/ Clinton ticket for President before NYC gets more than 5 demonstrator public pay toilets.
[The first I heard of them was in the Dinkins Administration. This "up to $1bn" deal is over 20 years; I imagine it's pretty backloaded, too, with all sorts of CAGR assumptions that get the city to $50mm/yr someday by the time my kid graduates from college, at the earliest. Looks like we'll be using the hotel bathrooms for at least another decade. -ed.]