Downtown Pittsburgh to get temporary public bathrooms

Officials are working to have temporary public bathrooms installed in Downtown Pittsburgh, but it’s unclear when and where they’ll be available.

“We understand the critical need,” said Maria Montaño, a spokesperson for Gainey. “Right now there are zero public bathrooms in the Downtown neighborhood, and that creates a lot of issues.”

Montaño said the city is working with other Downtown stakeholders on a plan to bring temporary public bathrooms to the area for a six-month pilot program. The city, she said, is currently exploring locations that could work for the bathrooms.

The temporary bathrooms will be mobile and could be moved to a different site if the initial locations don’t work well, she said.

The bathrooms the city plans to use will have electricity and running water, Montaño said, and arrive on trailers.

“They’re almost like a permanent toilet, but not quite,” she said. “We just didn’t want folks to think of random construction porta-potties. The look of them is quite nice.”

Montaño said the city has not yet chosen a specific company for the portable restrooms, and she could not offer an estimate of how much it would cost for the city to use them for the planned six-month pilot program. She also could not immediately confirm whether they’d be ADA accessible.

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She said officials want to have the public bathrooms ready “as quickly as we can set them up,” but did not offer a timeline of when that may be.

“The long-term goal is to have three or four fully functioning accessible restrooms Downtown,” she said.

The short-term pilot, she said, will help the city determine the best locations for the bathrooms and garner feedback from Downtown stakeholders and business owners before making decisions regarding permanent public bathrooms.

The plan is for the public bathrooms to be open from 7 a.m. till 11 p.m. seven days a week, Montaño said. There will be staff dedicated to keeping them clean and “making sure they’re usable,” she said.

“Obviously, cleanliness of the restrooms is important,” she said.

Officials in Gainey’s office have acknowledged for months the need for public bathrooms in Downtown Pittsburgh. Montaño in April said the city was working at that time with other stakeholders to get public bathrooms in the area as part of a broader effort to make the area cleaner and safer.

A recently released study from Point Park University also pointed to public bathrooms as a key element in improving the city’s Downtown area.