A free, standalone, self-cleaning public restroom will be installed in Chicago next year, according to Ald. Daniel La Spata (1st). When it’s up and running, it’ll be the first of its kind for the city, matching those that have long been a fixture on European streets.
For years, La Spata has pushed to bring more public toilets to the city. While he couldn’t share an exact date or location for the restroom in the 1st Ward, he told the Sun-Times the project is “rapidly” moving forward.
“It’s been a lot of waiting and waiting and waiting, but it’s finally happening,” La Spata said.
The restroom, also called an automated public toilet, comes from JCDecaux, the France-based advertising company that also supplies and maintains Chicago’s bus shelters and other public furniture.
JCDecaux is providing the restroom and maintaining it at no cost to the city, La Spata said. The installation costs will be covered with the Northwest Side ward’s menu funds, which City Council members receive annually for infrastructure projects in their ward.
La Spata didn’t share an exact cost for the installation and said he is waiting for a final estimate from the Chicago Department of Transportation. The unit will be placed near existing sewer and water lines, which he said brings down the cost “significantly.”
Erica Schroeder, spokesperson for the city’s department of transportation, said the estimated installation cost is less than $500,000.
A JCDecaux spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
“This is an everybody amenity, but it’s especially helpful for our seniors and families with small children. I say that as someone who frequently travels with a 3-year-old who has to go potty at a moment’s notice,” La Spata said.
With the public toilet, “Chicago is catching up,” La Spata said. “These are amenities that JCDecaux has been providing in other cites for a very long time.”
Since 1994, JCDecaux has supplied 25 standalone public toilets to San Francisco, according to that city’s public works department.
La Spata first started advocating for more public restrooms over three years ago when he and Ald. Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez (33rd) held City Council hearings on the issue.
La Spata was cautious about promising that more toilets will follow. “It took us three years to get this one,” he said. But he’s optimistic 1st Ward residents and visitors will see the benefit.
“I’m hoping that when we get this out there, we can show people this is both safe and sanitary,” La Spata said. “If it works out, it’s a really scalable solution for the ward and the city.”
The public toilets have a time limit and are automatically cleaned between uses. JCDecaux claims the company invented the self-cleaning public toilet over 40 years ago.
In 2021, the Chicago Tribune made a searchable map of the city’s easily accessible public restrooms. The paper identified less than 500 structures with free public restrooms, most of which are in the city’s public libraries, police stations, public parks and other public buildings.