by Jim Stanford, Canadian Auto Workers
I’ve just spent an awesome year in Melbourne, Australia. Melbourne is a lot like Toronto: similar population (about 4 million), excellent cafes, diverse culture.
But one of Melbourne’s most unexpected assets is also its most convenient: almost everywhere you go, it’s easy to find a clean public toilet. This makes it eminently relaxing to wander about town, without needing to “go before you go.”
The actual City of Melbourne covers only the immediate downtown core, ringed by dozens of independent suburbs. That central core alone boasts 48 public toilet centres – each with several toilets, running water and soap, and special boxes for used needles. Half the facilities are on street corners; half in the many downtown parks and gardens. They’re cleaned every day, and locked every night. Two are 24-hour facilities with attendants. Not once all year did I encounter a public toilet half as grungy as you’d find in any Canadian donut shop.
The suburbs boast hundreds more public facilities, just as clean. My neighbourhood had several within a 5 minute walk of home. One is a large 1950s-style underground washroom in a busy Italian café district (with all those lattés going down, it is well-used). Few Torontonians would enter a street corner alcove like that, let alone sit on a toilet seat there – but in Melbourne it’s both safe and socially acceptable. continue reading…
