URGENT ACTION
Public Toilets: A Missing Priority in Ottawa’s New Official Plan
While the new Official Plan seeks to transform Ottawa into a world class 21st century city, there is one glaring omission: there is no mention of a network of public toilets in the plan. The lack of a network of safe, clean and accessible public toilets is, or should be a crosscutting issue for all strategic objectives.
We, the team of the GottaGo! Campaign, are responding to The New Official Plan of Ottawa policies and strategic directions. We are kindly asking for your support by co-signing our letter addressed to Ottawa’s Councillors and the Planning Committee for The Official New Plan to ensure that Ottawa improves its network to safe, clean, accessible and gender-neutral public toilets. We are requesting that you contact your local Councillor to include public toilets in the New Official Plan.
Urgent Action
Please co-sign Gottago! Campaign asking City of Ottawa Mayor and Councillors to include public toilets as essential public health infrastructure in the current 2020-2021 budget considerations. A letter co-signed by many community groups and organizations will constitute a powerful statement in supporting this policy request.
The city pre-budget consultations has begun on October 6. Therefore it is urgent that you sign this letter as soon as possible so that we can send it to the mayor and councillors for consideration during the budget hearing.
A network of safe, free, clean, environmentally responsible public toilets that are accessible to persons with disabilities in Ottawa will benefit all of us in the city particularly, women, children, seniors and people with chronicle diseases. It will help us keep our city clean and more friendly for residents and visitors. It will also create jobs, increase safety in our public spaces, and stiumlate the economy. It is a win-win to everyone at all ages!
What you can do?
- Spread the word through your social network about our campaign
- Help us put pressure on the City and National Capital Commission (NCC) about our proposal: feel free to use this sample letter as a reference for your letter to the City and NCC
- Tell us what you think about Ottawa’s public toilet system: fill in our GottaGo! online survey!
Our No. 1 priority right now is to Ensure that open, clean public toilets and water fountains accessible to people of all abilities are installed in all proposed LRT stations and Park and Ride stations. Despite an expected 10,000 passengers per hour passing through the stations, there will be few toilets. There will be public toilets at each end of the light rail: Blair and Tunney’s Pasture and City Council has now agreed to put them at the Bayview and Hurdman Stations, but we don’t think this is enough. What if commuters at stations at other staions need to use washrooms? Where can they go? Learning from our existing bus stations, we know what it would be like without clean and accessible washrooms at an LRT station.
Please phone or write our mayor, city councillors, rail implementation office, and city’s public health department that we want public toilets at ALL LRT stations.
LRT Stations. Source: http://www.confederationline.ca/en/the-plan/where/