More Surreal than World Class
Sometimes, this city is just surreal:
Flush with success from projects that put decorative paving bricks on Main Street, expanded the downtown tunnel system and helped renovate the Rice Hotel, central Houston's redevelopment authority is turning its attention to matters more primal: public pay toilets.
"It evokes so much laughter," said Vicki Rivers, executive director of the Main Street Market Square Redevelopment Authority, "but it is a serious situation. My board members are very supportive of doing this."
Plumbing for five toilets was installed along Main Street during downtown's recent face-lift, and Rivers and her staff have started researching the array of self-flushing, self-sanitizing toilets on the market. But the project has been stalled by a bureaucratic clog: While Rivers' group, the business arm of a tax increment reinvestment zone, can buy the toilets, it can't pay to maintain them.
I don't know what what is worse -- the toilet that the redevelopment board can't afford to buy AND maintain (but wants us taxpayers to do so), or the sentence that begins this article.
It is nice, though, that even though we can't figure out how to pay the upkeep on the dang things, we've already figured out a pricing structure:
Rivers said the toilets anticipated for downtown likely would cost 50 cents per use, but free tokens would be available for children, the homeless and pedestrians in dire need. Money raised would go to toilet maintenance. Rivers said her agency would like to begin the toilet program with a single trial unit, possibly situated in a park such as Allen's Landing or on a sidewalk or parking lot.
Remember the homeless guy who dashed in front of the Danger Train recently?
Somehow, I'm guessing it's probably a bad idea to give the homeless access to the self-cleaning toilet. I'm just having visions of one of 'em getting their head stuck in the thing as it retracts into the wall for cleaning. Not a pretty vision. Not at all.
It's good, though, that the redevelopment board has ruled out some possibilities:
The redevelopment authority has rejected a Swiss-made toilet unit with walls that are one-way mirrors, allowing users to view passers-by and activities outside the building as clearly as if through a normal window.
"People might be uneasy in this unit," Rivers said. "They might feel as if their privacy had been violated."
Ya think?
I know Kuffner expects me to make a world-class comment, but I don't even think it needs to be said. TFG has some further thoughts.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 07/21/04 20:38 | Houston | Technorati
Previous Entry | Home | Next Entry
Comments
Hi Kevin! TOTATLLY off topic here, but I was reading through your profile where you said you enjoyed texas music. Have you heard of Back at the Ranch? They do a lot of the Bob Wills style/Texas folk music. I heard them at a Tx music festival up at Washington on the Brazos. I will get you the link.
Posted by sharon @ 21:07 on 07/21/04
Here's my post on Back at the Ranch http://www.livejournal.com/...
Posted by sharon @ 21:09 on 07/21/04
I had a funny conversation with my husband. I was telling him about the
self-cleaning toilets and your post about how this would make Houston
world-class and the pictures of the see through/mirrored toilet.
A few years ago, he was the Asst GM of the San Jose (CA) Convention Center
and Cultural Facilities (phew) and he said while he was there, the city
bought 4 of those self-cleaning toilets. French-made, cost $100,000
each. So the city's Cultural Facilities office was in charge of the
toidies and he said he would go to these weekly meetings to discuss
upcoming events and other concerns and there would always be a toilet
update!
You know, stoppages, where to move them this week for maximum usage/effectiveness, etc.
Said it just drove him nuts! He's trying to discuss high-end catering
for really big conventions (Apple, HP, etc) and he gets upstaged by
these stupid toilets!
Apparently San Jose was world-class before Houston =)
Posted by Anne @ 21:29 on 07/26/04
Thought some of you might be interested in this web page that dicusses the subject.
http://americanrestroom.org...
Posted by Bob Alan @ 06:29 on 02/01/05
Add Comments
While it is not required, creating an account for commenting provides a number of benefits (such as comment editing and bypassing the captcha challenge). You may log in to your account here.
No flames or impolite behavior. Any questions, see the site policies. Older posts are moderated (because of spammers), so if your post does not appear immediately, that could be why.
HTML will be stripped. URLs will be transformed into hyperlinks.
[b]text[/b] will produce bold text. [i]text[/i] will produce italicized text.
Comments for this post must be approved before being published. Thank you!
BLOG
» Create Account
» Log In
DISCLAIMER
Content and design copyright © 1997-2008, Kevin Whited.
Posts represent the views of Kevin Whited (and occasional guest bloggers) only, and do not necessarily reflect the views of employers, family, friends, or significant others.