Seattle parks users complain about winter bathroom closures

Nearly every day, Gustaf Karlholm takes his dog for a run through the heavily wooded Ravenna-Cowen park complex in Seattle’s Roosevelt neighborhood. But throughout the winter, the Seattle realtor and mortgage broker is frustrated to see other park users trying to get into the bathrooms, only to find them closed.

The popular park is one of dozens around the city that closes its bathrooms, or “comfort stations,” for three months during the winter.

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All told, Seattle Parks and Recreation shutters about two-thirds of its approximately 90 outdoor restrooms, in part to save money on maintenance because of budget challenges, in part to prevent freezing of pipes, according to parks department spokesperson Joelle Hammerstad.

“We are truly sorry for the inconvenience to park users. I know that bathrooms are big issues for folks. We wish that we could keep them open all year,” she says.

“They have had bathrooms open in the parks year round for decades and then suddenly they feel like, ‘Oh, we need to do winterizing?,'” asks an incredulous Karlholm of the closures he first observed several years ago.

He’s one of many who’ve complained to both the Parks Department and City Council, calling the closures short-sighted.

Hammersted counters many of the bathrooms were built without heating, and if pipes freeze and break, the costs would be far greater.

Karlholm points out even during the winter, Ravenna-Cowen is heavily used by people jogging, walking, playing sports, riding bikes, and using the popular playground.

“You have families, you have picnics, you have bike meets, you have all the groups that go volunteer and work in the park. It’s constant,” says Karlholm. “We have groups of around 30 pre-schoolers who go daily for play in the park. How are they supposed to handle this?”

In response to a letter sent by Karlholm, Laurie Dunlap with the Superintendent’s Office for Seattle Parks and Recreation writes that additional staffing and funding would be required to keep the comfort stations open past the June-to-October “peak season.”

“Over the past five years, Seattle Parks and Recreation’s maintenance budget has suffered significant cuts, and our maintenance crews have been significantly reduced.”

Dunlap also writes that suggestions to keep the comfort stations open without cleaning and restocking is “not tenable.”

Karlholm argues the parks department is not actually saving money because maintenance workers who still work in the parks have to travel elsewhere for bathroom breaks, significantly cutting into their productivity.

He says the large homeless population that sleeps in Ravenna and Cowen parks continue to defecate in the park, causing further cleanup for maintenance workers as well as creating hazards for park users.

The parks department does keep a number of restrooms open at its busiest parks year round, including Green Lake, Lincoln Park and Volunteer Park. The department also contracts to install and maintain portable toilets, primarily at athletic fields or other heavily-used sites, Dunlap wrote in her response to Karlholm.

“However, portable toilets are problematic,” she writes. “They attract vandalism and other crime (drug dealing, prostitution), neighbors complain that they look bad and smell bad, and the current cost to rent a portable toilet is about $500 a month, which doesn’t include the additional cost of the not infrequent repairs needed for latches broken or for when the portable gets tipped over or blown up. So portables are only a very limited solution.”

A new Seattle Park District approved by voters last August could help relieve some of the funding problems. Property taxes created by the new entity will provide money for city parks and recreation, which will provide for expanded hours and services, including winterizing some comfort stations.

In addition, the new park district will allow for additional staffing and improvements to bathrooms during the remaining nine months, says Hammerstad.

“The bathrooms in the summer time will get more passes by staff to clean them more frequently,” she says. “A big thing that people really ask for and want is just bathrooms that are clean, that are painted, that don’t smell, that are more up to date. So we’ll be focusing on making them a more pleasant experience.”

Karlholm argues keeping bathrooms open to park users year-round should be a basic function of the department and not subject to even the seasonal closures. “I think that if they feel they don’t have money then they don’t know how to manage money, and if they feel they need to prioritize, then their priorities are messed up.”