Up until 2022, many of BART’s public restrooms were shut down and, ironically enough, off-limits to the public; now they’re back — and cleaner than ever.
When BART’s new all-gender, LED-lit, clinically white public bathrooms reopened at the underground Powell Street Station now over two years ago, the news was quickly weaponized by conservative news outlets as liberal fodder for its objective absurdity. Mind you: Before February 2nd, 2022, the public restrooms at the station had been shuttered for about 20 years.
Why? 9/11.
What does BART mean to our riders?
For Owen Flaherty, a local high school student, BART is a muse.
The summer after 8th grade, Owen found himself suddenly drawn to photography. He credits BART for giving him the initial jolt of inspiration.
Full story: https://t.co/Bonz1wf6F5 pic.twitter.com/mJjVNUC4Wu
— BART (@SFBART) February 6, 2024
“After the 9/11 attacks, the Department of Homeland Security ordered BART to shut down underground restrooms as they saw it as a security risk,” explained the regional rapid transit agency through a series of then-tweets (now X posts? IDK, we’re all still confused) in response to the commentary around the restroom reopenings. “The recommendation from DHS stayed in place for many years.”
Even once the agency acquired permission to reopen the stalls, BART concluded that the then-current state of those facilities was in desperate need of improvement.
“[The bathrooms needed] ADA compliance, entirely new plumbing and ventilation, removing hazardous materials installed in the 1970s, etc,” explained BART further on now-X. Alas, the decision — and a lack of momentum to see those modifications to fruition — left at least ten underground BART stations with no bathrooms for the better part of two decades. (It was another reason why pre-boarding farewells like “make sure you pee before jumping on” began carrying a similar weight to goodbyes punctuated with “get home safe” and “make sure you watch your phone’s battery charge.”)
The grand opening of the bathrooms at BART’s Powell Street Station on February 2nd, 2022— perhaps a tongue-in-cheek wink to… well, Number Two bowel movements — was spectacularly dystopian.
There was a toilet paper cutting ceremony. “Gaybraham Lincoln,” who was front-and-center of a nearly 3-minute long, unsavory campaign advertisement last year in support of that year’s viral SF school board recall, was seen on-site with his antiquated iPhone filming the event. A whole-ass press conference was held to celebrate the flushable occasion.
No doubt the comedic quilt work that this over-the-top opening included seemingly wove itself into existence. But the introduction of the modernized restrooms was, however, more than just an episode of City pragmatism. It symbolized a return to normalcy from years defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, no matter how granular the event felt on the surface. (Plus, the odds of seeing public urination and defecation before zipping to SFO via BART are now, theoretically, much smaller.)
As someone who tends to look nine-and-a-half months pregnant shortly after consuming their third Diet Coke that hour, having the chance to alleviate myself before jumping on the Antioch-SFO/Millbrae line is a sweet relief all of its own. (When I had the pleasure of using the well-lit restrooms at BART’s Powell Street Station just this past week, I was pleasantly surprised by their cleanliness; how well-stocked they were; and the lack of smell wafting from a restroom that sees at least 300 uses every day.)
And it looks like I can thank BART restroom attendant Pual Hurtado for having a hand in keeping that facility blessedly usable.
The aforementioned BART restroom attendant recently went into detail on the profound importance of public restrooms in a profile the rapid agency published about Hurtado on Monday, March 7.
“You can come to BART, use these restrooms, and you will have a welcoming, safe, and clean experience,” Hurtado, who’s a restroom attendant at the Powell Street Station, said to BART.
For many riders, Hurtado’s words were a long time coming, especially for those who frequent two of the most trafficked stations in the transit system: the Powell Street and 19th Street Oakland stations, which reopened public bathroom facilities on February 2nd and February 25th of 2022, respectively. The genderless lavatories are “safer, cleaner, and more welcoming than ever before,” thanks largely in part to the efforts of attendants like Hurtado.
Hurtado, too, described that the reopened amenities have a duplicitous symbolism. The reopened bathrooms serve as a tangible example of BART’s continued promise to better improve its transit system for patrons, all while waxing on the notion that City services should serve individuals of all ages, races, and socio-economic backgrounds.
“At first I was like, it’s just a restroom,” Hurtado said, adding that the Powell Street Station and the 19th Street Oakland Station are cleaned every hour to ensure they’re properly maintained. “Then, as time passed gradually, I was like, wow, this is something the public needed. It’s one of those things you take for granted.”
Hurtado shared that it’s not unusual for a restroom user to throw a thumbs-up or appreciative nod in his direction — presumably, both in surprise at a stall’s cleanliness and smitten over the fact these restrooms reopened after being shuttered for so many years.
