DC’s public toilets to reopen amid funding uncertainty

D.C.'s public toilets closed, at least for now

According to Throne Labs, just before the Fourth of July holiday they received notice that the city deemed Throne's public toilets as not an essential service and did not renew the contract.

WASHINGTON - A clean public bathroom can be tough to find, especially now that a popular program to provide public toilets in D.C. is on hold.

The Throne Lab toilets are closed, at least for now.

Bathroom shutdown

What we know:

FOX 5 DC is learning that they will reopen very soon after residents and community leaders came together to ask the city and the mayor to continue funding these public restrooms.

"Has any of them ever had to really go really bad?" said Jeff Rueckgauer, ANC 2B02.

"A word for a restroom is ‘necessary.’ It’s an old word, but they used to call it the ‘necessary.’ That’s how essential they are," said Joe Bishop-Henchman, ANC 5F06.

On Monday, there was a sign outside a number of the Throne restrooms across the city that said "Throne is closed! Funding has been suspended due to red tape."

That sign is no longer there, but the high-tech public restrooms which can be accessed using your phone are still locked.

According to Throne Labs, just before the Fourth of July holiday they received notice that the city deemed Throne not an essential service and did not renew the contract.

According to D.C.’s City Administrator Kevin Donahue, the Fiscal Year 2025 funding for the Throne pilot program was "frozen" due to Congress slashing $1 billion from the city’s spending budget.

The city says it has come up with funding to maintain the program for the rest of the fiscal year and is deciding whether it will fund the Thrones for FY26.

ANC commissioners with Thrones in their neighborhoods say these restrooms are a necessity that have been used over 70,000 times in the city in just a year.

Community pushback

"We’ve seen ANC firsthand how cleaner it makes our neighborhoods and public spaces. How you don’t have to hire a team of people to clean up certain things when you have these restrooms. We think we are saving a lot of money by having these restrooms available, and we hope that the city administrator will see it that way," said Bishop-Henchman.

"Everyone in the city needs to go. It’s counterproductive and kind of shameful—in a major destination downtown—you have tourists and residents alike saying, ‘You can’t go here,’" Rueckgauer said.

The new fiscal year starts on October 1.

Funding for that year is being discussed. But what we do know is that Thrones will reopen very soon.