Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson’s new budget calls for spending $1.4 million annually to place 10 high-tech, modular public restrooms in busy areas across the city.
The proposal follows the city’s pilot project with a tech startup called Throne Labs earlier this spring, which saw four solar-powered public restrooms placed in Pioneer Square ahead of the World Cup.
The Throne bathrooms are sleek and modern. To access them, users need to scan a QR code with their phone or use an entry card distributed by Downtown Seattle Association ambassadors.
A disembodied voice greets you with “Welcome to Throne” as the doors whoosh open automatically. The room has bright wallpaper, a baby changing station, a sharps disposal container and a flowery scent. Elevator music plays as you go about your business. There's a ten-minute time limit per visit (with several warnings before the door pops open). After you're done, Throne sends a text asking you to rate your experience.
Each Throne bathroom costs the city about $116,000 annually — that covers the bathroom itself, as well as maintenance and regular cleaning from Throne’s support team.
Seattle’s previous efforts to expand public restroom access have been stymied by issues with drugs and vandalism. But in her budget proposal, Wilson said the Throne pilot in Pioneer Square has been a “huge success.”
In an interview, Throne co-founder Jessica Heinzelman said her company’s high-tech accountability measures have helped prevent problems.
“We know that there are ways to influence people and how they act for the positive, and so we’ve really built that into our design and our systems,” Heinzelman said.
More than 30,000 people have used the Pioneer Square bathrooms so far. The median visit time is two minutes, and users have given the bathrooms an average cleanliness rating of 4.1 out of 5 stars. Only five people have been restricted from using Thrones, Heinzelman said.
“If somebody is going in there and hotboxing it, we see that in the data,” Heinzelman said. “We’re able to send a warning saying, ‘Hey, this number was associated with a use where we detected smoke, if this happens again you risk losing access.’”
Addressing Seattle’s longstanding public bathroom shortage was a campaign promise of Mayor Wilson’s. In a recent budget speech at the Seattle Library, Wilson said people should be able to think of Seattle’s public spaces as an extension of their homes.
“That means that, like any good living room or backyard, they need to be safe and welcoming,” Wilson said. “And speaking as the mother of a young child, not too far from a toilet.”
When Throne first came to Seattle, Heinzelman said she could sense the “trauma of the past” stemming from the city’s prior public restroom experiments, and “people jumping to assumptions that Seattle can’t have nice things, that this is going to go downhill quickly.”
But six months later, Heinzelman said the data speaks for itself. Only 1.6% of Throne uses have resulted in a complaint, she said, and the company hasn’t received any comments mentioning drug use, needles or syringes.
“I think we really see a future where finding a nice clean restroom is not stressful, and it is as easy as opening your phone and saying ‘Hey, where’s the nearest one?’” Heinzelman said.
It hasn’t been without hiccups. Two weeks after the Pioneer Square Thrones were installed, someone threw a rock through one of the bathroom’s windows. A passerby noticed and texted Throne’s 24/7 remote support line to report it. A Throne employee was on site to replace it the next morning.
It’s important “not to underestimate the role of community in keeping these things nice,” Heinzelman said.
The mayor’s budget proposal doesn’t specify where the 10 modular bathrooms would be located. In an email, city spokesperson Alex Hudson said Seattle’s Department of Finance and Administrative Services would work with the Seattle Department of Transportation and other city departments to determine locations.
Wilson’s budget also proposes spending $1.8 million in Seattle Parks District funds and King County Parks Levy funds to install two new permanent restrooms: One in Cheryl Chow Park in Rainier Valley, and another in a yet-to-be-determined site in Northeast Seattle.
The City Council is currently reviewing the Mayor’s $9.1 billion budget proposal.
