Mamdani's new $4M NYC public bathrooms auto-open doors after 10 minutes
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani rolled out a $4 million public bathroom pilot Wednesday in Queens that will install 17 Throne Labs units across all five boroughs to address the city's restroom shortage.
Company co-founder and COO Jessica Heinzelman explained that users get 10 minutes before escalating warnings culminate in the door automatically opening.
Heinzelman detailed the final warning during a city news conference, saying users receive flashing lights and an audio notification before the door opens.
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"At 10 minutes, there are flashing lights. The audio comes on. And this is both in English and Spanish for all of these indicators," she said.
"It says, ‘The door — your time is up, the door is opening.’ The door’s opening. That extends for about 30 seconds. So, if you are still pants down, we're not going to open the door on you. But then the door does open."
Heinzelman told Fox News Digital Thursday that Throne Labs settled on the 10-minute restriction after reviewing typical public restroom limits and measuring how long people actually spend inside its units, saying most users leave well before the deadline.
"The 10-min limit is a common standard for most timed public restrooms. We further validated measuring the average throne use time, with the vast majority of users across our markets leaving within 3½ minutes," she said. "Users are notified of the time limit prior to entering, and the throne provides multiple audio and visual warnings throughout the use.
"At the tail-end of the use there is 30 seconds of audio and visual queues [sic] to leave. This has proven successful in other cities, balancing human needs and mitigating loitering."
Former Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg told Fox News Digital Thursday that the unusual feature should be weighed against New York City's longstanding shortage of public bathrooms and the high cost of building traditional facilities.
"Anyone who’s walked the streets of New York knows the lack of basic public facilities is a real quality-of-life problem," he said. "Cities have managed to spend extraordinary sums building individual public toilets, so if this modular pilot can actually get clean, safe bathrooms on the street for a fraction of that, it’s a victory for municipal common sense.
"After all, I’d much rather see the mayor doing the gritty, unglamorous work of solving an actual New York City problem than spending his time grandstanding about Middle East policy."
The one-year pilot will place the ADA-accessible units at high-traffic locations in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island. According to the Mayor's Office, they will be free, operate daily from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. and can be opened through text message, QR code, the Throne app or physical tap cards distributed through community partners.
Mamdani said the modular approach allows the city to avoid some of the infrastructure expenses associated with permanent bathrooms because the units do not require direct connections to water, sewer or power systems. During the news conference, he compared the price of the entire pilot with the historical cost of a single city restroom.
"Seventeen costs about what one public restroom has historically cost in New York City. And that is part of why we have not built that many, because we've seen the cost of these restrooms just escalate year after year," Mamdani said.
The 10-minute limit is designed partly to deter loitering and extended occupation. Throne Labs says users receive reminders at five and eight minutes, flashing lights and a more urgent message at 10 minutes and the door opens at 10 minutes and 30 seconds. The company said 81% of users across its network finish within five minutes and more than 95% at one downtown Los Angeles location finish within 10 minutes.
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The same technology is already being used in California. Caltrain's current restroom pilot uses Throne units at Redwood City, Sunnyvale and Palo Alto stations and tells riders that after the 10-minute limit, "a visual and auditory warning will sound before the doors are opened."
Long Beach also launched four Throne units in 2025 and subsequently extended its partnership after the initial pilot. The city's original announcement said the units contain 21 sensors that monitor cleanliness, usage and potential misuse while maintaining user privacy.
The city's subsequent pilot feedback also showed at least one user raising concerns about the time restriction. In Long Beach's published community survey responses, one respondent said the city should increase the limit after nearly being caught inside when time expired.
"Please make it more than ten minutes. I was almost embarrassed in front of strangers still using the restroom," the respondent said.
Mamdani said New York City has roughly one public toilet for every 8,500 residents and characterized the 17 units as a first step toward a larger network. When asked about the restriction Wednesday, he offered a more succinct warning to New Yorkers accustomed to lingering in the bathroom.
"This is not a place to scroll on your phone. I know that many people do that. This isn't one of them," Mamdani said.
Fox News Digital reached out to Mamdani for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
