Two years after its debut, is Philly’s public restroom project a royal flush or circling the drain?

When I turned the door handle of the Philly Phlush in Center City last week and heard a man yell “Someone’s in here!” my heart skipped a beat.

It’s not often I get excited when I find a restroom occupied, and by not often I mean never. But I’d come to the Phlush at 15th and Arch Streets — one of the standalone units in Philadelphia’s pilot public bathroom project — to see how things were flowing on its two-year anniversary and I was pumped to find someone using it because I want this project to succeed.

I was less excited to see someone else filling up an empty 7-Eleven Big Gulp cup in the unit’s external sink and repeatedly dumping it out on the sidewalk (at least six times). The sidewalk wasn’t dirty but I’m sure the woman had her reasons.

“Hey! You just got my foot!” the man in the bathroom yelled at her, when the water splashed up through the vents at the bottom.

And for a moment, this little bathroom felt like a microcosm of Philadelphia. For every person who uses something it seems like there’s always someone else ready to abuse it. But it only seems like that because we tend to remember when things go wrong more than when they go right.

The woman left after a few minutes. Shortly thereafter, two people came up to use the occupied Phlush and doggone it, we had ourselves a ding dang line! I’ve never been more excited to stand in a bathroom queue in my life.

As the minutes passed, I struck up a conversation with the guys in line with me — Robert Clark, 63, of Germantown, and Jeffrey Jacobs, 70, of North Philly. Both men told me they use the Phlush often.

“I been in there when the toilet backed up, when there’s paper all over the floor, but they still good to have,” Jacobs said. “People ought to not abuse it. They should be glad to have it in the neighborhood.”

Clark, who found 30 cents at the Phlush (“I think they’re paying me to use it!”) praised the bathroom for its convenience and asked me to pass along a message to the city.

“Tell them to make more of them,” he said. “We need more.”

After 13 minutes, the man inside of the Phlush when I arrived finally emerged. He declined to tell me his name, for obvious reasons.

“Sorry, guys,” he said to us. “It’s not that great. It’s frustrating, for real.”

I did not ask if he meant the bathroom or the business he took care of within it.

I let Clark and Jacobs go ahead of me because I am just that kind of a person (and because I’m sensitive to odors and needed that thing to air out). In total, I saw seven people use the bathroom during the hour or so I was on site.

Once inside, I found that the toilet paper, seat covers, tampons, pads, and naloxone cabinet were fully stocked and everything was functioning, except for the changing table, which was broken. Again. It’s a reoccurring problem at the Phlush.

But it’s not the biggest issue the Phlush is facing. While the project isn’t circling the drain, it’s been backed up for almost two years and I was told recently that the city doesn’t have enough funding to see the full scope of it through.

The Phlush debuted in 2023 under former Mayor Jim Kenney’s administration. The potty pilot project called for six Portland Loo standalone units — which the city rebranded as Philly Phlushes — to be installed across Philadelphia over five years at an annual cost of $656,864.

Two of the bathrooms, the Center City unit and another at Fotterall Square Park in North Philly, opened in the summer of 2023. A third was slated to open in West Philly’s Clark Park at the end of 2023, but it still hasn’t arrived.

James Garrow, director of communications for the Department of Public Health, said via email that preparations for the Clark Park Phlush are underway and the department is just waiting on permit applications to be approved.

But word leaked to me that the unit for Clark Park was delivered last year. Has it really taken that long to get permits?

“Yes, the permitting process has taken more than seven months,” Garrow said.

Turns out, even the city has a tough time getting permits — from itself. Sounds like Philly could use a little Ex-Lax to get things moving.

A potential site has been selected for the fourth unit, but the location is under wraps until community outreach is completed, Garrow said. A fifth Phlush is “likely” but a site is not expected to be chosen until next summer.

As for the sixth Phlush, it “will not be possible with the pilot’s current funding,” Garrow said.

The units so far have cost between $152,665 and $168,320 each and installations ranged from $218,704 to $249,802.33, according to Garrow. He estimated the cost of maintaining the two existing Phlushes — which are visited, cleaned, and restocked every two hours by three “public restroom specialists” (two of whom have been on the job since they opened) — is about $322,656 a year, including supplies, vehicles, and repairs.

Is the fact that the city already knows it won’t have enough money to fund the sixth unit a death knell for the future of the Philly Phlush? Is there any hope this will ever expand beyond a pilot project?

“The City will determine the budget for this pilot in FY28 and beyond during the annual budget process. The pilot still has two years of designated funding,” Garrow said. “The lessons learned during this pilot are critical to informing any long-term plans for public restrooms in Philadelphia.”

Philadelphia has lagged behind other metro areas when it comes to the availability of public restrooms. A study released in March by Nationwide Waste Service ranked Philly 40th in the nation when it comes to public bathrooms (i.e. those where you’re not required to buy something), with 6.3 toilets per 100,000 residents.

There’s obviously a need — a basic, human need — for these free public bathrooms and they are being used often. I implore our city leaders to find a way to expand funding for the Phlush and I urge you all to do the same.

Speak now, my friends, or forever hold your pees.

Following my visit to the Center City Phlush last week, I went to check out the one in Fotterall Square, only to find it locked.

I approached a group of men hanging out in the park on what was a hot, humid day and asked if the bathroom is usually locked (it was open on my previous visits). The elder statesman of the group — a 75-year-old man who said he’s the “unofficial park ranger” of Fotterall Square and would only give his name as “Mr. C” because that’s “what everybody knows me as” but also, perhaps, because he was drinking out of a black, plastic bag — said the bathroom is usually open and he knows the guys who come three times a day to service it.

“That bathroom there is cleaner than the average person’s house bathroom,” he told me. “The bouls that come keep it very clean.”

Mr. C said that sometimes kids slam the door and it gets jammed. Garrow told me that the city has had issues with the Fotterall Square unit’s locking mechanism, which was last repaired in late June and will now be repaired again.

The bathroom’s exterior sink and all its functions — including the hand dryer — worked and there was a dose of naloxone stocked in the unit’s exterior case.

As I chatted with Mr. C in his 76ers hat and Ocean City, Md., shirt that said “Stay salty,” he told me he extols the virtues of the Phlush to those who visit the park, telling them it’s “A-OK” and that “me and my little squad out here all use it.”

Then, he offers visitors a bit of advice.

“I tell them ‘You can go in there and use it, but don’t dive in it,’” he said. “I don’t get paid, it’s just a community service I do.”