DC Metro Unveils First Automatic Toilet
 

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Metro Glimpses a Flush of the Future
High-Tech Toilet Being Tested At Huntington Offers Riders Relief
By Lyndsey Layton
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 9, 2003; Page B01


Ronald Terrell was unsure of the shiny, silver structure that was positively glowing yesterday in a dark corner of the Huntington Metro station. Its door glided open, light spilled out, and Terrell walked up tentatively, as if approaching an alien spaceship.


"Whoa," the 22-year-old Fairfax County resident said, as he drew closer and spotted a toilet inside the blindingly white porcelain interior. "That's pretty cool. Whoa, I've never seen one of those."

Terrell was admiring the appropriately named Galaxy, a self-cleaning computerized toilet imported from New Zealand. Metro is leasing it as part of a one-year, $109,000 pilot program to bring some relief to subway passengers.

The Galaxy is not your county fair Jiffy John. The six-ton stainless steel box stands inside the fare gates and is available free to anyone who has paid a fare. It measures about 12 feet long and 6 feet wide and features a heated tile floor, a mirror, coat hooks, bright lighting and recordings of soft piano music.

At the touch of a button, the toilet seat comes out of a compartment built into the wall. Toilet paper is dispensed by the press of another button. After the toilet is used, it automatically flushes and the seat is washed in cleanser and returned to its hidden compartment.

The "sink" is built into the wall. When hands are placed under one sensor, a dollop of liquid soap is released. Under another, warm water sprays, and under a third sensor, hand dryers automatically turn on. After 30 flushes, the Galaxy locks itself and goes through a five-minute chemical rinse and dry cycle, like a dishwasher.

A couple of Texas tourists, Mary Lou and Tom Pevehouse, were the first to use the Galaxy yesterday. Once inside, Mary Lou Pevehouse took a few minutes to figure out how it worked, causing her husband some concern as he waited outside. "I'm beginning to think we'll have to rescue her," he said.

No need to worry: Its manufacturer says the Galaxy automatically opens after a person has been inside for 10 minutes. Mary Lou Pevehouse finally emerged a little dazed and complained that the self-washing toilet seat had been wet and she had to use a wad of toilet paper to dry it before use.

T. Dana Kauffman, who represents Fairfax on the Metro board, said he wants to see whether the Galaxy attracts new riders to the Huntington Station. "We're trying to increase the ridership among seniors, families with small children and people with incontinence issues," he said. If, after a year, ridership has not measurably increased at that station, "it'll be a hard sell" to keep the Galaxy, he said.

Yesterday's maiden flush was emotional for Robert Brubaker, a retired Fairfax County computer manager who has lobbied Metro for two years to make its restrooms more available to passengers.

"This is a big step," said Brubaker, who has created a Web site, metroped.org/Restroom/Home.htm, formed a group called the Public Restrooms Initiative and become a darling of the bladder-challenged community, collecting speaking invitations from groups such as the National Association for Continence.

Many riders are not aware that restrooms exist in the Metro system, hidden as they are behind heavy brown doors with small signs that read "To Fire Equipment Cabinet" or "Authorized Personnel Only."

When Metro was designed in the early 1970s, the retired military men who planned the system considered New York City's troubled subway system and decided that public restrooms were out, along with any nooks or crannies or visual barriers that would offer hiding space for criminals.

But every Metro station was built with at least two restrooms, one for each sex. They are usually near the station manager's kiosk, off a hallway behind a locked door. They are spacious and clean, equipped with multiple stalls, plenty of soap and neatly stacked paper towels. Metro policy requires station managers to make the restrooms available to any passenger who is having an emergency, has small children or is elderly or disabled. But riders say station managers rarely admit them to restrooms.

"People don't know about the bathrooms, and the station managers have been reluctant to let them use it," Kauffman said.

Metro Transit Police Chief Polly Hanson has objected to unlocking bathrooms and keeping them open to the public, saying they would create a haven for criminals and illegal activity.

A check of major subways across the country found a mix of policies regarding public restrooms. Los Angeles and Chicago do not have restrooms; Philadelphia has restrooms at major stations; and Boston unlocks its restrooms on passenger request.

The New York subway system has about 200 public restrooms in its stations but closed most of them about 20 years ago because they became impossible to clean, maintain and police, transit officials said. Although about 60 remain open today, their locations are not publicized; they are an amenity for those in the know.

Kauffman said he will propose that signs be installed at stations to let passengers know that restrooms exist and can be used on request of the station manager. At stations where restrooms are in a sensitive area -- close to the power source for a station, for example -- Metro ought to consider installing a Galaxy toilet elsewhere on the property, Kauffman said.

Surrounding the Galaxy yesterday was a cluster of executives from Exeloo, the New Zealand company that manufactures it, including one whose necktie was patterned with a small image of a man reading a newspaper while sitting on a toilet. Exeloo sees the Metro project as key to winning business among other U.S. transit systems and recently struck a deal to install a portable restroom in the Atlanta subway system.

"Metro is looked at as the premier transit system in the country," said Doug Stoner, president of Exeloo East, the company's U.S. division. "Obviously, this is a very big deal to us."

http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-d...884-2003Oct08L

What will they come up with next?!?! Actually it is pretty cool... :)

very cool indeed, all though.....I assume the taxpayers are footing the $109,000 price tag?

$109,000? For a place to take a piss? For that kinda price tag, it should have vaccum operated, pressure sensitive lips that automatically come out to give me a blow job, when I've finished my business. Or at the very least...an automatic butt-wiper.

there's one of these in Herald Square by Macy's ... it's always out of order...

Hmm.... Some people take longer than 10 minutes in the bathroom. So the door will open with your pants around your ankles? Shitty! :lol:

Finally!!! Living near DC, I take the metro on occasion (after a long night drinking in the city) and it always sucked to have to hold it in til I got to a parking garage.

Thank you Jeebus.

Why am I not surprised?

Wow people are lazy. It sucks to clean the seat, yeah, but c'mon--I can get my own soap when I wash my hands.

So it costs as much as a house, is highly complicated meaning it will probably break often and be expensive to repair, exposes its users if they take longer than 10 minutes, and leaves the toilet seat nice and wet.

Sounds like yet another example of idiot politicians getting together and figuring out the most flagrant way to piss away taxpayer money.

On a related note, I read that the USPS was considering buying Segway scooters for mailmen. PLEASE tell me nothing ever became of that.

EDIT: Oh my god. That $109k is just for a LEASE. They could open their EXISTING bathrooms to the public, hire a staff of 3 janitors at 30k/year each dedicated solely to keeping those bathrooms clean, and STILL come out ahead.

is it only me thats finding it weird that there is at least 4 guys walkin in to take a piss in the one toilet?!

no... im pretty sure the toilet will come out of the wall if your standing in there trying to figure out what to do for 10 minutes...

First of all, I'm all for public bathrooms. I don't like to use them, but it's nice that they're there.

That being said $109,000 is a lot of friggin' money for a toilet. Does anybody else want to comment on how pathetic society has become when a bathroom that does it all for you (lazy pricks) garners attention in the Washington post. Not to mention "Yesterday's maiden flush was emotional...." EMOTIONAL?!?! It's a toilet. Apparently a toilet for folks who are either too stupid or too lazy to dispense their own soap, flush their own toilets, and turn on the water by themselves.

I'm afraid that putting in a fancy toilet isn't going to get people to ride the trains in D.C. They should take the $109, 000 and hire a full time janitorial staff and then hire new metro managers. Managers keeping people from the bathroom and poor sign placement seems to be the problem with the current system, but I'm sure a big fancy bathroom that dispenses toilet paper at the push of a button will solve all that.

i dont use public toilets

i fear germs
:(

That's the thing, there are no existing bathrooms there. If you gotta go, you gotta run to the parking lot and stand in between two parked cars.

According to the article there are bathrooms, it's just that they're somewhat hidden and kept locked by managers who are reluctant to let anybody use them, I guess because making their public restrooms available to the public would make too much sense.

I kept thinking, "Jetsons", while reading the article.

Now all we need are suicide booths. :rolleyes:

These guys need to take a look at O'Hare Airport in Chicago. I flew through there last summer and the concourse restrooms have toilet seats that clean themselves. I am sure they cost a fraction of what that monster unit costs. The seats have a sleeve of plastic that is dispensed from the wall behind the toilet. The plastic slides around a u shaped seat and back into the wall where it is stored for disposal. Each (automatic) flush causes a new piece of plastic to be dispensed. Very few parts to wear out at a much lower cost.

I'm still waiting for the day I can go to work, taking public transportation, and come home without having touched anything.

LOL

I love those things! I haven't seen them anywhere else besides O'Hare. That's a shame, they should be in every public restroom.

I just avoid s(h)itting on public toilets all together. Unless I'm about to make a hershey factory in my pants. All public bathrooms should have autmatic flushes, faucets, dryers. And there should be no door to the bathroom itself (not the stall). You know...the kind that kind of cuts side to side so you don't have to use any doors for all those people who don't wash their hands.

I'm not a fan of public shitters, either. I get stage fright. Then I sit there trying to coax myself into pissing. Its demeaning. I don't think I could do it even if the toilet came out and said hello.

On another note, I did see an advertisement for a super duper toilet seat on TechTV the other day. Apparently you replace your "ordinary" toilet seat with this contraption. The seat is heated, and when you are done doing your "business" instead of "unsanitary" toilet paper, you get a powerwash for your pooper. Heated water or not... that would take some getting used to.

My uncle used to have a bidet in his washroom.. I almost used it as a toilet once. (oops)

The fact is that you do get a lot cleaner using a bidet ... paper sucks in comparison.

Looks cool, Dunno if I'd use it much tho. Although.. I'd love to see it used on Simpsons.. Home would have a blast with that thing!!!

Besides, I still want "The Man's Bathroom" done by Tim 'The ToolMan' Taylor!!

I remember that episode!!