An interdisciplinary team from San Diego State University analyzed the accessibility of public restrooms along transit lines countywide and found a shortage of facilities, particularly in the busiest stations, and a lack of important features in existing restrooms. Their project, “Where Can You Go On the Go?” was an initiative of SDSU’s Project for Sanitation Justice (PSJ) and won the communication award for the 2023 Spatial Thinking Student Competition, a contest sponsored by the International Statistics Institute and geographic information system (GIS) technology company Esri.
Leading the project was SDSU second-year psychology master’s student Adriana Rios, who said her experiences growing up in San Diego and becoming a single mother at a young age inspired her to conduct work that promotes accessibility and helps give back to the community.
As PSJ’s lead student mapper, Rios was responsible for building an interactive story map with public restroom locations and data including whether they are ADA accessible, gender neutral, or have baby changing stations. Using advanced mapping techniques and data she both gathered herself and received from the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System, she created this tool for users to easily access this information.
“We used San Diego as a case study because we’ve had different disease outbreaks that have been linked to the lack of public restrooms,” Rios said. “It’s a great example of how imperative it is to have that resource, especially with our growing homeless population. It’s vital for them to have access to basic sanitation and hygiene.”
Rios said public restroom accessibility is both a social justice and public health issue that is especially pertinent to San Diego County. The region has in recent years seen several outbreaks of sanitation-related diseases, namely hepatitis A and shigellosis, which particularly affect individuals experiencing homelessness.
Her team’s research found that only one out of three trolley stations have public restrooms even within a quarter-mile. The busiest station in the MTS, downtown’s 12th and Imperial station, has only two free and publicly-accessible restrooms. The second-busiest station, San Ysidro, has none.
Rios said public restroom accessibility is both a social justice and public health issue that is especially pertinent to San Diego County. The region has in recent years seen several outbreaks of sanitation-related diseases, namely hepatitis A and shigellosis, which particularly affect individuals experiencing homelessness.