DECLARING A PEE-MERGENCY! WE NEED SKATEPARKS WITH TOILETS!
Sign the pee-tition and create more awareness for inclusive skatepark design.

Dear skatepark designers, park managers, city councilors, and decision makers, 

We're urging you to think about the lack of toilets in skateparks. Not having safe and accessible toilet facilities at skateparks, forms a barrier to people to spend time there and participate in sports. Therefore, we need you to be aware of inclusivity in skatepark design and to make changes for your local community. 

Any skatepark user knows that - more often than not - a skatepark 'toilet' is most likely to be a smelly unhygienic wall/tree/fence in a corner of the park, only accessible to those who can pee while standing up straight without having to risk touching anything of the urine-drenched environment. The lucky ones among us might have a restaurant nearby, but better leave your board behind and tuck your shirt in, because the owner is fed up with all the skateboarders running around his place and will not let you in for the 500th time. 

We urge you to take action so that skateparks can really become a place for anyone. Therefore, we've compiled a list of examples that underline the importance of toilet facilities.

• The right to sanitation is a human right.
  The right to sanitation entitles everyone, without discrimination, to have physical and affordable access to sanitation, that is safe, hygienic, secure, socially and culturally acceptable, and that provides privacy and ensures dignity. 
• Inequality in skateparks.
  Although not having toilets is uncomfortable for anyone, this is even more so for any human who is not capable of (or feeling safe while) peeing standing up straight, with pants on (a.k.a. many men). 
  
  Therefore it's contributing to inequality, as it forms a barrier for e.g. women, girls, people with disabilities and other groups, to come to the skatepark, stay in the skatepark and obviously, to skate in the skatepark. This is an extra layer of hostility towards any groups that have historically been overlooked and underrepresented in skateboarding (and loads of other sports), in an environment that has long been a very male-dominated one, centring masculinity and marginalizing anything else.
• A bloody mess.
  Your uterus decides to throw in a heavy flow while you're at the skatepark. No toilet nearby, can you find a public spot that's safe and hygienic enough to switch your pad? Is 10 minutes to the nearest toilet enough time to make it before a red spot marks your pants? Is a tissue that you found in your bag enough to make it all the way to home? This illustrates a struggle that many menstruating people experience when spending time outdoors, including at skateparks.
  
  Also to all decisionmakers out here; while we're at it, please look up information about 'period poverty' and always make sure to have free sanitary products in public toilets. 
• Watering the local plants
  Not having toilets nearby, means that people will do their business elsewhere such as, playgrounds, flower fields, gardens, bushes, trees, etcetera. This is not only very unhygienic, but also really disturbing to residents living near the skatepark. What if someone pees in your garden? What if your toddler goes to play out in the grass, only to come back smelling all gross? We can give more examples, but let's not make it too graphic shall we?
• Pandemic pee
  In many countries, restaurants and bars had to close their doors due to COVID-19 restrictions. For skateparks, this meant that the few toilets that were still readily available (and clean), also disappeared. 
  
  For skatepark developers, trusting on third-party toilets to solve the toilet-crisis, is a risky choice. Skaters will be dependant on potential lockdowns, opening times, benevolence of the owners, or locations asking for a fee (making peeing a financial matter too). 

This list is nowhere near complete, and there are many more examples that we can think of, stressing the need for toilets in public skateparks. On top of that, building a toilet at a skatepark is more than just placing a portable loo and leaving it to rot. It means that you have to think of:

Different perspectives  - Involve a diverse group of users in your design brainstorm.

Safety - Make sure you've done everything possible to guarantee that it's safe for users to use this facility at any time given. 

Cleanliness - How will you ensure it's a hygienic place? Will it be a self-cleaning station? Will someone come by every day? 

Accessibility - Think of all potential users of the toilet, and make sure there are no burdens for them to use it. This takes place on many levels, for example: wheelchair accessibility, gender-neutral toilets, free-of-use toilets preventing financial barriers, diaper duty, period supplies. 

Evaluations - Go back from time to time, check if everything's still working and if users are still content, or that things need to be changed. 

 

We know that this battle reaches far beyond the borders of our skate communities, and therefore we're directing this pee-tition not only to skateboarders and skatepark designers, but also to policy makers, city councillors, and anyone else involved in the process of developing a public skatepark. 

There are three things you can do, to help solve the skate pee-mergency:

1. Sign the pee-tition

2. Tell us your lack-of-loo stories in the comments

3. Share the pee-tition and lack-of-loo stories your local skatepark developers, and urge them to install toilet facilities.

The pee-mergency is global, and this pee-tition is for all of us, so join the fight and SIGN!

 

Nanja 
General Director at Women Skate the World

www.womenskatetheworld.com
www.instagram.com/womenskatetheworld

p.s. want to learn more about accessibility in skateparks? Check this out:
- Goodpush accessibility webinar
- Goodpush accessibility report