April 10, 2026
Toilet Wars: Paris vs. LA
The best seat in town
Paris’s self-cleaning bathrooms wow, LA gets roasted — and the price tag starts a fight
TLDR: Paris rolled out 417 new self-cleaning public bathrooms, bringing the city to 435 and turning street amenities into a flex. Commenters praised access for all but clashed over LA-bashing, steep JCDecaux costs (with SF cited), and a nitpick that the firm invented “advertising” street furniture — not the entire idea.
Paris just installed 417 gleaming, self-cleaning public bathrooms (435 total), and the article gushes about peacock-blue cabins that disinfect themselves after every flush — civic infrastructure so good it could make a club kid cry happy tears. But the comment section? A full-on toilet war. One camp cheered the idea that clean, safe public loos unlock the city for everyone — seniors, disabled riders, parents, you name it. Another camp cried foul: stop dunking on Los Angeles when its transit bathrooms face totally different challenges.
The hottest thread: money. Commenters claim JCDecaux treats Paris like royalty while charging other cities royally, with one user citing San Francisco’s big maintenance bill and arguing LA isn’t crazy for trying an alternative. Meanwhile, fact-checkers pounced on the article’s line that JCDecaux “invented street furniture,” insisting it was “advertising street furniture” — and if the opener is shaky, what else is? Paris stans still swooned over greenery-laced bus shelters and butterfly-friendly corridors, while locals allegedly stuck in traffic grumbled from the driver’s seat. The vibe: a messy, hilarious thread of “number one vs. number two” jokes, cost conspiracies, and city-pride smack talk, all asking the same question — who deserves the best seat in town?
Key Points
- •JCDecaux launched self-cleaning public toilets in 1980, now present in 28 countries.
- •Paris installed 417 new JCDecaux toilets in 18 months, bringing the total to 435 and adding a cabin-plus-urinal design to boost capacity.
- •Each use triggers an automated cleaning cycle with bowl retraction, spray disinfection, and floor flushing with sensor-based debris detection.
- •San Francisco installed 25 customized JCDecaux toilets under a 20-year agreement funded by kiosk advertising, costing the city nothing.
- •Los Angeles’s 2022 municipal program built 14 free-standing toilets that are all currently closed, with four temporarily kept open via a councilmember’s stop-gap funding.