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I’m going to answer the question in the title right away: Space. The answer is that to design them the correct way would take too much space. I know the answer, and yet I’m going to bitch for a while anyway.
I just got back from five days in Las Vegas. That meant a lot of public bathrooms. In airports, hotels, restaurants, casinos. I hate public bathrooms and in my everyday life avoid them when I can. But when I’m traveling, I just have to grit my teeth.
What I was reminded of this week is that most bathroom stall doors open in. And I know the reasons why:
- If the doors opened out, people would get hit with doors
- If the doors opened out, and the lock was broken, it would be a lot easier for someone to accidentally open the door while you’re peeing
- If the doors opened out, and you were in the bathroom with a little kid, they’d have a much easier time opening the door and exposing you for the rest of the bathroom to see.
But here’s the main problem with doors that open in: In most cases, you practically have to straddle the toilet to close the door once you’re in there.
And when you’re traveling, and have bags with you, it can be nearly impossible to close the door, period. In my normal everyday life I try not to use a handicapped stall, in case someone else comes in needing it (in my entire life I’ve never seen a person in a wheelchair go into a handicapped stall, but they’re very handy if you have a stroller). But if I’ve got a suitcase, it’s the first stall I head for. Thanks to the ADA, the door is supposed to open out, and there should be enough room for a wheelchair (or a suitcase).
But aside from handicapped stalls, you’re pretty much screwed. Sometimes there’s enough room to stand to one side of the toilet while you shut the door, but often that space is taken up by a giant toilet paper dispenser, or a sanitary napkin basket, otherwise knows as the germ center of the stall. So there’s no way I’m pressing myself up against that.
Usually I end up squeezing myself between the door and the toilet, as the door scrapes my arm and catches on my bag.
What’s amazing to me is that the American Restroom Association (I swear I didn’t make that up) doesn’t even address this on their page about restroom design. They talk about ceilings, music, locks, spring-loaded seats, and just about everything else, but they don’t seem to care that women practically have to stand on the toilet to operate the door.
Until someone solves the various issues of doors that swing out, the only solution is the make the stalls deeper. That way the door has room to swing (although I have been in a few fancy bathrooms with super wide and deep stalls, where the door was so huge there still wasn’t room for it to close! In an extra-wide stall, the door should not be as wide as the stall).
So what’s the problem with that? Well, as I mentioned at the beginning, space. Deeper stalls mean less space between the stalls and the sinks, or the wall, or whatever is there. And according to some people online who like to chat about bathrooms, the bigger the stall, the more chance there is for “misuse.” In other words, people getting freaky in the stall.
Listen, women already get the short straw when it comes to bathrooms. It takes us longer. Just ask Hillary Clinton. We have to remove clothing, we have to sit down. We shouldn’t also have to get up close and personal with parts of the stall that shouldn’t be touched.