Public washrooms in Vancouver: looking for relief
You’re riding the Skytrain home after a long day at work, and are just stepping off at Joyce Station to transfer to the R4 when you realize you need to use the washroom. Where do you go?
Trees Cafe across the street could work, but you don’t want to buy a latte just to quickly relieve yourself. The A&W certainly doesn’t have a public washroom. Instead of relaxing into the rest of your commute, you’re suddenly running the numbers on the fastest way to get to a washroom and back to the bus stop.
While this might currently be the norm in Vancouver, ask this same question – “where’s the nearest public washroom?” – to a London resident, or someone riding the Tokyo metro, and chances are they’ll point you in the direction of a clean public washroom that’s less than a 30-second walk away.
This lack of public washrooms seems at odds with Vancouver’s consistently high ranking in lists for the world’s most livable cities, so why exactly does Vancouver have so few public restrooms, and what are some potential solutions?
Why Are There So Few Public Washrooms in Vancouver?
As local urbanist content creator Uytae Lee outlines in his video entitled Why Public Bathrooms Suck in North America, access to public washrooms across Vancouver is limited (though things used to be different). As of 2020, there were only 173 public toilets across the city, with 95 located in parks, 67 in public facilities like community centers or libraries, and 11 automated public toilets – the majority of which are operated by the Vancouver Park Board (83%, to be exact).
Map of public washrooms in Vancouver, 2020 – Vancouver Park Board
Fast forward to 2026, and the City of Vancouver’s Open Data Portal provides an interactive map of public washrooms. If you did arrive at Joyce Skytrain Station needing the loo, you’d be looking at an 8 minute one-way walk to Collingwood Park’s washroom (and only if it’s before dusk).
Additionally, many existing washrooms don’t meet the accessibility standards defined by the province. If you’re lucky to be near a washroom with a larger stall, grab bars, or changing table, there’s a chance it’ll be closed for repairs or only open during the daytime.
Finally, the ongoing homelessness and drug crises – particularly the lack of wraparound social services, including safe housing – have left public washrooms serving as a place of refuge for those seeking shelter, resulting in these facilities being consistently under maintenance or in an unsanitary state for the general public.
What Needs to Happen Next?
World-class cities need world-class public washrooms, and an easy place to start for Vancouver is with transit. Most major cities outside of North America have washrooms conveniently located at the busiest points on their transit networks – a fact which Vancouver has started to take notice of.
In September 2025, Translink opened a brand-new washroom at Metrotown Station, the 2nd busiest Skytrain station on the transit network. This new washroom is open 7AM – 10:30PM Monday to Saturday (8AM to 10:30PM on Sundays), with three individual and one accessible stall, and is staffed with a dedicated attendant. It also sports a colorful mural and an open-concept design to discourage vandalism. Unfortunately, this means it took the City almost 50 years to build two transit-adjacent washrooms (the other being at the Waterfront-side of the Seabus terminal, which opened in 1977).
New washroom at Metrotown station – Translink Buzzer Blog
Vancouver should also look to build washrooms in densifying areas of the city to align with its Villages and other area planning programmes. For example, they could follow the lead of Paris – a city currently modernizing their 400+ toilet network – and install new washrooms on the street to create a larger and better-connected network of 24/7 toilets (remember: the COV currently has 11 such facilities). As a positive sign, it was reported that City Council opened 2026 by discussing a framework to integrate public washrooms into future major projects like street upgrades and encourage businesses to allow public access to private washrooms (the Parks Board also has their own, separate washroom strategy).
Additionally, in preparation for the FIFA 2026 World Cup games at BC Place, the City plans to place a Portland Loo at Main and Powell, and another in Gastown. Two of these metal-enclosed toilets are already operating in Crab Park and another at Coopers’ Park in Yaletown. These are quoted by city staff as being “relatively bulletproof” and potentially able to operate 24/7. It’s important to note that despite the upfront price of CAD$650,000, planners highlight ongoing upkeep as the prime factor driving these washroom’s lifecycle costs.
Finally, public washrooms don’t always need to be associated with imposing steel structures. It’s widely understood that creating clear boundaries and a sense of ownership over public space – including frequent maintenance, public art, and landscaping – reduce the amount of vandalism these spaces experience.
Transparent toilets at Harunogawa community park, Tokyo – Photo by Syced, CC Wikipedia
In the future, the local design community could be engaged to create Vancouver-specific public washroom solutions (for example, it’d be great to see a Canadian-made version of the Portland Loos in the future)! This type of place-specific design is already in motion in other Canadian cities – last year, our friends at the Toronto Public Space Committee held “TO the Loo!”, a global ideas competition to imagine the future of public washrooms in Toronto.
The key thing to remember is that easy access to clean public washrooms isn’t a new concept – it’s an essential component in the sanitation, safety, and dignity of a great city like Vancouver. Around the world, there are striking examples of thoughtfully designed public toilets that warrant deeper consideration — and deeper levels of investment — in our city.
Special thanks to Devan McClelland, a Langara Applied Planning graduate, for kickstarting the discussion presented in this post.