Three months ago, a nondescript beige building was carefully lowered by crane into Runyon Canyon Park, one of the most heavily used hiking areas in Los Angeles.
Once fully operational this summer, the building’s two stalls will offer a permanent public restroom for the very first time at the Hollywood-area park, which sees about 2 million visitors each year. The public bathrooms were a long time coming; the lack of a place to go had long left Runyon Canyon out of compliance with city standards for park service.
Los Angeles overall is in the midst of both a public parks crisis and a public bathroom crisis, lagging behind other major cities on both metrics. Los Angeles city parks have approximately 1.4 bathrooms per 10,000 residents, according to the Trust for Public Land, compared with 3.8 public park bathrooms per 10,000 residents in San Francisco…