When Bathroom Access Restricts Mobility

In a piece republished in The Good Men Project, Emma Durand-Wood argues that a lack of public bathrooms is “not just an annoyance. It really affects people’s lives.”

According to Durand-Wood, “A 2019 report out of the U.K. included some grave findings. The study found that 20% of people don’t feel able to go out as much as they’d like to, specifically because of bathroom access. When my kids were young, I would have absolutely counted myself in that 20%. For those with medical conditions requiring frequent toilet use — like diabetes or bladder, bowel, or prostate conditions — this rose to 43%.”

The study also revealed that people restrict their liquids intake to limit how often they’ll need to use the bathroom, leading to dehydration that can exacerbate medical problems. Even when they are available, bathrooms are sometimes inaccessible to people with mobility issues or equipment.

Why have we decided that bathrooms are a must for special events and essential for tourists, yet our everyday selves aren’t worthy?

Durand-Wood concludes, “Even though the public benefits of bathrooms are so high for such a relatively low cost, we can readily grasp that this type of infrastructure will need ongoing, nonnegotiable maintenance, so we don’t even build them in the first place. It’s a bold contrast to million- or billion-dollar road expansions that provide very little return on investment and whose costs for maintenance and eventual replacement we give virtually no thought.”