airport restrooms

Two airport restrooms in the running for America’s Best Restroom

A clean public restroom? We vote yes!

Courtesy Mourad

The lid has been lifted on the finalists for this year’s America’s Best Restroom contest and this year restrooms in two airports on opposite sides of the country are on the list.

LaGuardia Airport’s loos in the running

LaGuardia Airport Terminal B, Location: Queens, New York, LaGuardia Gateway Partners

If the restrooms at LaGuardia Airport’s Terminal B are among the finalists for America’s Best Restroom, there may indeed be hope for the overall success of the airport’s current rebuild. 

With an eye to efficiency and innovation, these new restrooms have stalls large enough to accommodate luggage, trough-style sinks with a raised counter above; live orchids, custom mosaic tiles at the entryway and over the urinals and graphics depicting New York City on the stall doors.

Courtesy LaGuardia Gateway Partners

“Terminal B’s new restrooms combine cleanliness, innovative aesthetics and advanced technology together to create a top-class guest experience that travelers deserve,” said Stewart Steeves, CEO of LaGuardia Gateway Partners. 

On a roll at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport

Courtesy Port of Seattle

Lovely new restrooms are part of the major renovation project for the North Satellite at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

These new loos feature a flushing system that harvests rainwater to the tune of more than 750,000 gallons a year. The modern loos also have separate sinks inside the ADA stalls, family restrooms with adult changing tables and built-in custodial support closets.         

“We appreciate that people think we have some of the best seats in the house. said Sea-Tac spokesman Perry Cooper, “That’s how we roll.”

The eight other restrooms on the list of finalists this year include loos at the Nashville Zoo, at the Natick Mall in Massachusetts, at the Jupiter NEXT hotel in Portland and at restaurants, a brewpub and the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City.

Courtesy New Museum

You can cast a vote for the coolest commode through September 13. The winning loo will take a throne in America’s Best Restroom Hall of Fame and receive $2,500 in facility services from contest sponsor Cintas Corporation.

Atlanta Int’l Airport testing restroom stop/go lights

Los Angeles Internationl Airport has some ‘smart’ restrooms, now Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International (ATL) has some too.

As part of its $6 billion modernization program, ATL is testing technology to improve the restroom ‘experience’.

Two pairs of restrooms (at Delta’s Gates B18 & B23), now feature  Tooshlights – a system that works like modern parking lots to light red or green lights (in use/empty) over stalls – and Infax, a system that tracks restroom usage so janitorial staff knows when the space needs to be cleaned.

Anyone who has ever waited on line in an airport restroom waiting for an empty stall – and anyone who has been in a stall and had someone rattle the door to see if it’s open – will appreaciate the red light/green light system, especially when rushing between flights.

 

Travel Tidbits from Denver and Los Angeles airports

Ending the week with some travel tidbits from airports for you.

Were you hoping that Norbert the Turtle really was joining the pet therapy program at Denver International Airport? That turned out to be an April Fool’s Day joke, but DEN did add their 101st member to their team.

Not a joke was the announcement that Los Angeles International Airport had installed Tooshlights in one set of bathrooms in the American Airlines Terminal 4 to guide lav users – via overhead red and green lights – to stalls that are open.

LAX also announced that $4.9 billion contract had been approved by the Los World Airports (LAWA) Board of Airport Commissioners (BOAC) to design, build, finance, operate and maintain the Automated People Mover (APM) system at the airport.

The system promises driverless trains that will arrive at every station every two minutes, and light-filled stations with escalators, elevators, and moving walkways. Bonus amenities include a viewing platform of the iconic Theme Building.

When will we be able to take the train to LAX? Sometime in 2023.

More Best Airport Amenities from 2016

(SAN DIEGO, APRIL, 29, 2016: Members of the Fern Street Circus perform at the San Diego International Airport. Photo: Gary Payne)

We’re ending the year with a look back at some of the cool new amenities and events airports offered travelers during 2016.

During 2016, San Diego International Airport awarded its first performing arts residency to the Fern Street Circus, which spent several months at the airport creating, rehearsing and performing a new show about – what else – traveling – and just clowning around with passengers.

The train between Denver International Airport and downtown Denver finally started running.

And events on the plaza between DEN’s terminal and the Westin Denver International Airport got underway. Through January 1, there’s ice-skating on the plaza.

During 2016 airline and airport employees joined passengers at airports in Miami, Seattle, Denver, Charlotte, North Carolina and other airports to stand very still and be filmed for the latest viral internet trend known as the mannequin challenge.

And, the first batch of the 100 sets of bathrooms being updated at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport were declared winners in the 15th annual America’s Best Restroom Contest.

Here’s to more great events and amenities for travelers during 2017.

Airport loos land top spot in America’s Best Restroom contest

msp-airport-restroom_-winner-of-the-2016-americas-best-restroom-award

My “At the Airport” column in USA TODAY this month is all about airport bathrooms and celebrates the fact that Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport took first place this year in the annual contest to choose America’s best public restroom.

msp-restroom-4

The last time there was news about the stalls at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport was in 2007 and the story centered about a senator and a sex sting.

But now MSP and its loos will get more respect.

The first batch of airport’s updated restrooms was named the 2016 winners in the 15th annual America’s Best Restroom Contest.

Hosted by Cintas, a Cincinnati-based company that cleans and provides supplies for public restrooms, the contest lets the public pick the winner from a set of 10 finalists and this MSP’s lavs were pitted against the likes of a Dr. Who-themed Tardis bathroom at a bar in Brooklyn, N.Y., a bookstore in St. Louis where the bathrooms are papered in classic books, and the restrooms at a Coca-Cola Park in Allentown, PA, (home of the AAA Lehigh Valley IronPigs) which feature a hands-free, motion-control urinal gaming system. (Scores get posted!)

The restrooms MSP entered in the contest are part of a terminal-wide restroom renovation plan that started in 2009 and will continue through 2025 and encompass more than 100 sets of public restrooms throughout the airport.

In addition to overhauling each restroom to stalls with out-swinging doors and niches for rolling luggage, baby changing stations and shallow trough sinks that minimize splashing, MSP created “restroom zones” throughout the airport.

Each zone has out-the-way where travel companions can wait and amenities such as flight information boards, AEDs and others emergency devices, water-bottle refill stations and curated art display cases.

Mosaic art with a Minnesota theme marks the entrance to each restroom, with each set created by a different regional artist.

msp-airport-2

This isn’t the first time airport thrones have been in the running for the Best Restroom Contest crown.
Tampa International Airport’s renovated restrooms were among the finalists in 2013, losing out to the Varsity Theater in Minneapolis.

tampa-international-2

And back in 2005, the loos at Fort Smith Regional Airport in Arkansas took first prize.

fort-smith-regonial-airport-was-winner-of-americas-best-restroom-in-2005

(Read the full column – and see more photos here.)