For many, this may be the quintessential New York story. The elevator at Long Island Rail Road Station Number One has been listed as inoperable because of . . . well number one. The elevator is no longer working because of excessive urination in the elevator.
The elevator in Queens is only able to function 58 percent of the time due to urination which rusts the floor and corrodes the internal machinery.
The elevator in Queens will have to be completely replaced and the city is considering a “urine detection device” to install on all new elevators. I am not sure what the purpose of the detection device is. Most people in the car can detect it and most people urinating don’t care.
New York metro has replaced the floors of its cars with a marine material because urine was rotting away the floors of the cars.
When I read this story, I was thinking (as usual) of tort liability. Until this story, I would not have necessary thought that urine-based accidents were foreseeable on the New York subway, but it appears that this is not just a foreseeable but probably factor in accidents when elevators stop or floors give way. This has been a persistent problem even though the elevator to be replaced is next to a series of bathrooms.
Source: New York CBS
Turley: “The elevator in Queens will have to be completely replaced and the city is considering a “urine detection device” to install on all new elevators. I am not sure what the purpose of the detection device is. “
If I were designing it, the detector in the floor would automatically stop the elevator and lock the door. It wouldn’t be hard to catch the perpetrator, and denial would be difficult, especially after a DNA test.
Some people will act unethically when they think or know that someone’s not looking or can’t see. I doubt the idiots would be urinating on an escalator.
In a related story, Brazil is also having problems with uncouth youth and public urination. Maracana stadium, one of the largest in Brazil, is supposed to host both the 2014 World Cup of soccer (if you’re a purist, don’t say it) and the 2016 olympics.
Fans have rioted after lost games, and usually take it out on the toilets because they don’t fight back, unlike the cops. As a result, many toilets in the stadium are in a constant state of repair. When they don’t work, fans are known to urinate in public places around the stadium. Since 2000, corrosion of the stadium’s structure has become a serious problem.
It could be worse. What goes up, must go down. It is very common for people to pee behind dumbsters in alleys and in phone booths in NYC.
garçon de connerie
Darren,
Now there is a crappy job. Oh. Wait. That would be an entirely different garçon, wouldn’t it?
Not just NYC. Bay Area Rapid Transit escalators are constantly inoperable because of urine and feces.
BART shut down their subterranean station rest rooms, out of fear that naughty people would plant bombs, after 9/11/2001. Eleven years later…
Non-functioning escalators are just part of the price that we macho sissies pay for “freedom,” in the Home of the Brave.
London’s tube stations actually have been bombed. Shut down the toilets? No, that would be cowardly.
Gross.
The Chicago Metra train has restrooms. But not on all cars. Also, you’re allowed to drink beer on the train.
An important detail is missing from this. Does the station have public restrooms? Not that the lack of them would be any excuse, but if there aren’t any, providing them presumably would be a logical way to solve the problem. I have not ridden the D.C. metro in a while, but when I last rode it, the stations had no restrooms. What do they expect people to do?.
“Start spreading the news
I am leaving today
I want to be a part of it
New York, New York
These vagabond shoes
They are longing to stray
Right through the very heart of it ”
Really, Frank? Really?
or maybe hiring a garçon de pisse?
How about cameras in the elevators and prosecution of the pissers
Maybe escalators might be worthwhile
What a revolting situation…
Here in Atlanta, they do worse than that on the train station elevators, even going so far as to smear it on the walls. Savages.
I got on at “turdy turd and a turd” and after listening to the locals’ local accents and then getting subjected to Jay Leno at the airport on the way out of town with my half blind guy for whom I am guide dog, we decided to avoid NYC if at all possible. Cathouse was nice tho. Not as good as Amsterdam.
Well, if they didn’t sell sugary drinks in such large sizes, this wouldn’t happen.