MARTA finds new way to spell 'relief'

Rosie Brown says she never stops in a MARTA restroom, even if she really needs to.

"It's not clean; it smells bad," Brown, 54, said Friday at the bustling Five Points MARTA rail station in downtown Atlanta. "It's not really good. I just don't feel safe in them."

Soon, she'll have another option. MARTA is installing 12 high-technology, self-cleaning restrooms at Five Points, at a total cost of $1.1 million.

The German-engineered automatic toilets clean themselves after every use. The toilet bowl retracts into the wall, where it is washed, disinfected and dried. The floor also is automatically rinsed.

The new toilets won't be up and running until June, but workers are already prepping the station for installation. Two bays are being built at the north and south ends of the station's top level, each with five unisex stalls and one unit with handicapped access.

The automatic public toilets are popular in Europe, but they're only beginning to make an impact on this side of the Atlantic. MARTA is believed to be the first U.S. transit system to fully embrace the new technology. Washington's Metro system has been testing a unit for several years.

MARTA has been testing an automatic toilet at its Hamilton E. Holmes rail station for the past two years. The device —from a different manufacturer than the one chosen for Five Points — has proved popular, attracting more than 400 users a day.

MARTA officials say the facilities are part of a renewed effort to make the system more pleasant and convenient for existing users and to attract more "choice" riders, who have other ways of getting around town but choose MARTA. The system is also refurbishing old rail cars, rebuilding all 48 miles of its track and installing a new fare card system.

Each of the new restroom stalls measures 32 by 60 inches and is 7 feet tall. Each contains a toilet bowl and a sink. Users have 10 minutes to finish before the door opens. A computerized recording gives a warning at the eight- and nine-minute marks. If more time is needed, the user can contact an attendant via an intercom in the unit.

The toilets, made by German company Hering Bau, are free to use. But they'll be located behind the fare gates and thus available only to paying MARTA customers.

It all sounds good to Octavious Parks, 20, a student at Bauder College in Atlanta. He said he uses the men's room at the Five Points station even though it sometimes smells bad. "They try to cover it up, but sometimes it doesn't work," Parks said.

On Friday, just before the afternoon cleaning, the Five Points men's room was an unpleasant place. Water pooled on the floor, and an empty liquor bottle sat on a commode. Bits of damp, wadded toilet paper littered the floor.

The nearby women's room was in far better shape, according to Becky Stiles of Atlanta.

"For a public restroom, it's excellent," she said after exiting. "They smell good; they're generally well-stocked."

The million-dollar-plus price tag for the new toilets might seem prohibitive for MARTA, given the system's well-publicized financial problems. But MARTA officials say it makes sense given the transit authority's state-imposed budgetary restraints, which require that 55 percent of revenue be spent on operations and the remaining 45 percent on capital projects, such as buying new buses, rebuilding old train cars or laying new tracks.

While times are tough on the operations side, MARTA's capital fund is relatively flush now that the system is no longer in expansion mode. And officials say the new toilets will save money in the long run because they're cheaper to maintain than traditional restrooms.

At the Five Points station, three full-time workers are now needed to handle restroom duties. The new toilets will require only one part-time worker to do occasional maintenance, including cleaning the sinks and refilling the toilet paper rolls — saving up to $75,000 a year.

"The trend at MARTA is when we have capital dollars and we can use them to reduce operating expenses, we do that," said Ed Campbell, director of engineering for the agency.

Should the new facilities be a hit, MARTA may install single, stand-alone units at its Indian Creek, Doraville and North Springs stations.

Occasional MARTA user Ellen Schlossberg welcomes the change, though she's not sure she'll ever use the new facilities. "I follow my mom's advice and I go before I leave home," said Schlossberg, 40, an Atlanta lawyer who was en route Friday to watch the federal corruption trial of former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell.