October 29, 2003
"I am honored to accept your waste"
The Washington Metro is a wonderful system - fast, clean and reliable, except for when it's windy, snowing or Sunday morning. However, it is missing some amenities of older subways. For example, New York has express lines, crosstown shuttles and most importantly, a place to take a whiz (anywhere but the third rail). Recently, WMATA took one step towards making the Metro easier on the bladder by installing a test self-cleaning toilet in the Huntington Station. We have a review...
 Welcome to the machine. |
 The seat makes its grand entrance. |
 The automated TP dispenser. |
For starters, there is only one of these things in the entire system, so if you want to go but don't want to get charged for leaving the system, you'll have to take the yellow line all the way to its southern terminus. That is, until they install these things elsewhere, which is possible.
Now, to the bathroom itself. It looks like it some sort of fancy coffee grinder, knife sharpener or other brushed steel kitchen implement grown to ten feet tall. It's very European, with pictographs for everything in addition to english and braille. The lines are clean and it could pass for the entrance to an underground night club called simply "RESTROOM", if it weren't actually a shitter.
The first thing to be wary of is the washing mechanism. If you enter after someone leaves, the seat will be retracted. If you press the button to bring it out, it comes out while still being washed, along with a big gush of water. Didn't they think to make the user wait until it's done cleaning and drying before coming out of the wall?
Once the seat comes down, the fun begins.
Ass firmly in place on the umpeccably clean seat, you can see how clean the whole little room is. There is not a spot, scuff or stain anywhere. Apparently, it washes down completely on a regular basis, and it shows. It's a sad statement on our ability as a society to care after shared spaces, but everything is designed to be as impervious to drunken louts, naer-do-wells and high school pranksters as possible. You can't TP the station, because the toilet paper dispenser is button-operated, which means you'd have to spend about an hour getting a roll out. By then, you'd be washed down and disenfected three times.
The worst thing about the Metro toilet is the sink. There's no basin - you put your hands in the sink area, and soap, water and dry air come out, one after the other. Wanna throw some water on your face? You're outta luck. Wanna drown someone? No can do, buddy.
The bottom line: Putting toilets in the Metro is a good idea. When I lived in Baltimore, I would take the train from Capitol Hill to Greenbelt. From there, it was another 45 minutes until I got home. If I had to go, I was out of luck. With a few technical improvements, it'll be "wicked pissah!"
Posted by rj3 at October 29, 2003 10:26 PM
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Comments
Sounds like you went into the experience, hoping to be able to describe some portion of it as "wicked pissah!"
Posted by: ALO at October 30, 2003 7:34 PM
Guilty as charged...
Posted by: rj3 at October 31, 2003 7:09 AM