Michelle Cyca has had to change too many diapers on bathroom floors. The mother of two (her youngest is in his peak diaper phase right now), says she finally had enough after having to change her child’s diaper on the concrete floor of an Oak Street deli. So she decided to do something about it. Earlier this year, she launched the very straightforward Vancouver Change Tables Map.
“Every time I take my baby to a restroom without a table I’d think I wish I knew in advance,” she tells Vancouver Is Awesome. “I think it’s something that’s happened to every parent at least once,” she adds.
While restaurants have to have a bathroom of some sort, and most community facilities list whether they have washrooms (and other amenities), change rooms have slipped through the cracks it seems. This has left parents rolling the dice when they show up somewhere and need to change a diaper.
“You’re flying blind when you’re a parent,” Cyca says. The map is a fairly simple concept: Cyca has added locations with a green baby icon for spots with a change table open to anyone, while places confirmed as not having the amenity get a red “x.“ The crowd-sourced map project is growing, too, as people can add their own observations. Anyone can submit changing table info via a portal on the map website. “Somebody, a local hero, put all these breweries on the map,” she points out. She notes that the red “x” locations are as important as the green spots. “Each ‘x’ is a place someone has been to and found themselves out of luck in a crucial moment,” she explains.
