Redwood City Caltrain gets new restroom

“We don’t talk about bathroom issues enough,” Heinzelman said. “It felt like a really important problem to solve that also had very little innovation that had been dedicated to it.” 

Throne’s restrooms are fully accessible, solar powered and equipped with 21 sensors to track the cleanliness and usage of the facility. To enter, users must use their phone to either scan a QR code or send a text message for the facility to open.

The restrooms can be deployed within a couple of hours, are self contained without connection to public works utilities necessary, offering a quick and cost-effective option that Heinzelman hopes more cities and partners will consider installing. 

Part of the challenge of keeping public facilities clean is the difficulty or burden of users reporting their concerns, Heinzelman. This is addressed with a cleanliness rating asked of each user of the Throne restroom, allowing for efficient cleaning operations. 

“They will be asked directly on their phone, turning every person who uses our bathroom into our eyes,” Heinzelman said. 

In addition to user ratings, sensors track occupancy, air quality, fresh water levels, usage time and smoke detectors. All of this data is then used to order cleanings of the restroom, track offenses and create accountability, which is all not common in typical public restrooms, Heinzelman noted. In a high-transit area, cleanings of the facility will likely occur four times a day. 

“This helps us dispatch and organize operations around data, not arbitrary cleaning schedules,” Heinzelman said. 

In the many restrooms Thrones Lab has installed from Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles, about 1% of users misuse the facility, Heinzelman said. The restrooms also utilize “effective cues” to move users along and discourage loitering.  

“We see that the rate of repeat offense is pretty low,” Heinzelman said. “People value having access to a nice bathroom more than they want to mess it up.” 

One of the goals of Throne Labs is to decrease public defecation. In partnership with LA Metro, public defecation decreased by 50% at stations where Thrones were installed, Heinzelman said. 

The installed bathroom at the Redwood City station was made in partnership with Caltrain. For Heinzelman and co-founder Ben Clark, installing this restroom feels like a return to home. Both grew up in the county, and Clark built the first Throne prototype in a Redwood City backyard.

The restroom will be accessible from 5 a.m. to midnight. Caltrain did not respond to request for comment before publication.

Note to readers: This article was updated to reflect the correct date the restroom would be made available.