TransLink isn’t waiting for public consultation to test new public washrooms on Metro Vancouver’s transit system.
At its quarterly board meeting last week, CEO Kevin Desmond said it’s “an infrastructure issue, it’s a maintenance issue, it’s a safety and security issue.”
Outfitting each SkyTrain station with a loo may not be cheap or easy to do. But a special articulated trolley bus retrofitted with six automated-cleaning washrooms was quietly added to the Coast Mountain Bus Company fleet this weekend.
TransLink’s go, while you go bus, the P-Line, routes 1 and 2.
Access to the on-board washrooms is free for passengers with Compass cards and limited to five minutes per session; a one-minute warning sounds at the four-minute mark. The one-minute automatic cleaning cycle sanitizes the stainless-steel toilet. The bus contains high-intensity air conditioning and fragrant filtering to prevent unpleasant aromas from spoiling the ride.
The $1.2 million system includes diversion of urine to the biodiesel engine, in order to reduce emissions.
Reporters and the public are invited to take a ride, in more ways than one, on the 1&2 P-Line with driver A.P. Rilstulti just before noon today at the bus stop outside the Broadway-Commercial SkyTrain station.
Souvenir TransLink toilet paper and sanitary seat covers will be available to the first 100 passengers.
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