Relief could soon be on the way for New Yorkers searching for a public bathroom.

The City Council is voting Thursday on legislation that would require one public restroom for every 2,000 residents by the year 2035. The plan would significantly expand access to facilities in a city where, by current estimates, just over 1,000 public restrooms serve 8.8 million people - roughly one for every 8,000 residents.

Brooklyn Councilwoman Sandy Nurse, who is sponsoring the bill, said the change is driven in part by a rise in public-private partnerships.

What You Need To Know

  • The City Council is voting Thursday on legislation that would require one public restroom for every 2,000 residents by the year 2035

  • Brooklyn Councilwoman Sandy Nurse, who is sponsoring the bill, said the change is driven in part by a rise in public-private partnerships

  • The bill would also create incentives for the private sector to help expand the bathroom network

Nurse appeared on "Mornings On 1" Thursday and credited the "Free to Pee" coalition, a group of New York City residents, for helping to push the bill forward.

"What we're going to do is, for the first time, create a citywide public bathroom network," she said. "By 2035, we're going to have 2,100 public toilets across the city. We're going to require the city to constantly plan for how to maintain and expand that network. Tether it to the city's population growth, new commercial corridors that come online, new high-traffic areas that we haven't had before."

The city maintains some public restrooms, but public urination remains a recurring issue due to lack of 24/7 access, safety, maintenance or other complications. So far this year, 311 has received 90 complaints about public urination. In 2023, the NYPD issued over 3,600 criminal summonses and more than 5,600 civil tickets related to the issue.

"The city is doing a terrible job of maintaining its existing network," Nurse said. "This bill is going to force the city to plan for it."

Nurse, who represents central Brooklyn including Bushwick and Brownsville, said the bill would also create incentives for the private sector to help expand the bathroom network.

"If you're building a new large-scale housing development and you're getting city subsidies, why not create a public-facing bathroom while you're doing construction," she said. "Why are we not investing in these quick-to-install models that can go up around the city that are cheaper than we've ever had before?"

In 2022, the City Council passed a bill requiring officials to identify one restroom location in every ZIP code - though it did not mandate construction.

Then, in June 2024, Mayor Eric Adams announced the city would build 46 new restrooms and renovate 36 existing ones over five years through the Parks Department.

In a statement, Adams' first deputy press secretary, Liz Garcia, said the mayor's administration "believes that all New Yorkers deserve accessible, well-maintained public restrooms, which is why we've invested in new and renovated bathrooms, created a Google map layer on where to find restrooms, and added changing tables to all public park restrooms where feasible."

"We also understand that not every neighborhood has the same demand, and if this bill becomes law, we must prioritize new public bathrooms where there is the most need," Garcia added.