In the early 1970s Governor Shapp of Pennsylvania had a law passed saying that at least one toilet in any toilet open to the public be free. Thus you could have 20 paid toilets, and one free one and that would satisfy the law. The problem was every one then just used the paid toilet. Thus it is legal to have a pay toilet but among the pay toilets must be at least one free one.
Most Major Cities had public toilets till the 1930s, when most cities closed them because most cities did not want to maintain them (Toilets have to be clean on at least a daily basis and most cities just did not want to pay for such cleaning and general upkeep). To replace those public toilets most cities, starting in the 1960s, adopted rules that all restaurants must have toilets free to the public.
Please note, one of the reason to get rid of the Public Toilets was to drive out any long term protesters, this was hard to do if the toilets were open 24 hours a day (Some were manned 24 hours a day, most were not and it was the unmanned toilets that cities wanted to close). As seen in Occupy Wall-street, the lack of toilet facilities were a major impediment for people during the occupation (and the reason for the lack of toilet was to prevent any long term protesters in the first place, a policy adopted during the Great Depression).
I do NOT remember ever using the public toilet, even through in the 1960s I lived next door to one. I thought it was just a unpainted wood warehouse, but it was an old public toilet that survived till the 1970s. No one used it, but it survived. I do remember Governor Shapp protesting against paid toilets and getting the law passed making sure at least one would be free and how fast paid toilets disappeared right after that law was passed in Pennsylvania and other states. I remember the move to require all restaurants to have free toilets, which was aimed at McDonalds and similar fast food chains, which had no such toilets in the 1960s (The Restaurants protested, then found out it brought in customers and the protests died out).
Thus toilets have been a problem in the US, but we have addressed it by requiring Restaurants to have restrooms open to the public (The Restaurants MAY say it is reserved to paying customers, but unless the restaurant is pre about 1970, it can NOT restrict them to paying customers). Please note the rule on Restaurants in urban centers NOT the suburbs and NOT state law. Some Suburbs have adopted similar laws as to restaurants and restrooms like those in most urban centers, but not all suburbs have adopted such rules.
The biggest problem is finding such restrooms. Most Cities still have them in their public buildings but hidden away and often locked down after 5:00 pm. In a lot older sections of town, that are now booming due to Collage Students AND other people in their 20s and 30s going to such places, there is a need for public restrooms, but cities have just refused to build them for that means hiring someone to clean them.
In 2003 the City of Pittsburgh install a new Public toilet in the South Side of Pittsburgh:
http://old.post-gazette.com/lifestyle/20030212publicpot0212p2.asp
The problem is that it did not last long (the toilet still exists, but has been "Closed for Repairs" for years):
http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/brian-oneill/2015/04/23/Brian-O-Neill-Potty-s-No-1-problem-is-being-available/stories/201504230042
All this shows is what is needed are solid old fashion toilets subject to someone walking through the toilet ever hour or so to make sure it is clean. The problem is the refusal to hire the people to do the cleaning and the walk throughs. i.e. daylight every so many hours, evenings that should increase to every hour, and that should continue till about one hour after closing time, then till morning no visits till morning (Most people should have gone home by then).
The biggest problem with public toilets is during winter, many homeless people seek shelter in them for protection from the cold weather. Most beat police officers leave the homeless alone, for there is no where else for them to go. Thus public toilets gets loaded with people, most people do not want to see. Once most people are no longer using those public toilets, support to keep them disappear and then the public toilets go into further decay and closure. Yes, you can say I am blaming the homeless, but that is like blaming the rain for making things wet, i.e. the homeless are the mechanism that leads to public toilets to disappear, but the problem is there is no place else for the homeless to go and the Police do not want to find their dead bodies (i.e.the police want the homeless to be alive not frozen to death).
When I was in Collage in the late 1980s, in cold weather, I saw many a Collage and City Police Officer walk by a homeless person sleeping in an enclosed area with an ATM inside the enclosed area. It was out of the weather and the officers had no where else to send the homeless person. I have NOT seen it recently, for most ATMs today are outside or behind locked doors and I am no longer in the inner city. On the other hand I suspect it is still going on for the Police still do not know where to send such people.
I mention this for that is how police in the days of public toilets handled the homeless in cold weather, left them stay in the public toilet for it was at least above freezing. Yes, Public Toilets and the Homeless are related and no one wants to really address the issue of the homeless.
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