OUR SAY
By Don Gordon-Brown
We mere mortals would see them only as CityCycle advertising signs and nothing else. But insightful people – the true visionaries among us – see them doubling as urinals. A classic case of lavateral thinking, if you will.
Besides, not too many people are using the CityCycle stations around town much for hiring bikes anyway, so it’s really a stroke of genius to turn a fair part of said infrastructure – those ubiquitous advertising signs – into toilets. That at least was the suggestion in a riveting article in The Courier-Mail on 16 September, about the problem of public urinating in Australia’s first designated entertainment precinct, Fortitude Valley.
It seems that when the tens of thousands of young people flood into the Valley on any night, but especially the big nights of the week – Friday through to Sunday – there’s a flood of a different kind in the wee hours as revellers relieve themselves in public either because they can’t find a toilet in time or they are reluctant for whatever reason to use the ones they do know about – the unisex toilets next to the Valley police beat are said to be avoided in mass by women and others with outstanding arrest warrants and the like who have an understandable aversion to the thin blue line right next door.
The Page 3 article said “stakeholders” in the Valley were looking at ways of resolving the problem, the most startling of which was to use the bases of City Cycle advertising signs as public urinals. They’d be disinfected each night, we’re happy to report.
But we thought just urinals was a little bit sexist because ladies go to the loo, too, so above is our interpretation of how the scheme might pan out, so to speak. We’re not sure exactly where the growing waste material of such heavy patronage would eventually flow to, mind, but we feel rather silly even thinking of that rather messy problem when it obviously was of no concern whatsoever to the brilliant “stakeholders” who came up with the idea.
We assume they were serious; that the idea was not just some flash in the pan or worse still, that someone was playing a cruel joke on some gullible Courier reporters. Taking the piss, in other words. Another brilliant idea cooked up by these nameless stakeholders and faithfully reported in the article was to build “deterrent” urinals in the sorts of shady lanes and other places where desperate people relieve themselves – but with a catch! The V-shaped shelves would funnel the urine back down and splash the naughty offenders’ shoes! Gotcha!
This supposes that people who are pretty drunk and feel the need to relieve themselves in an alleyway are going to notice that they really are going to be the drips afterwards as a result of their unsavoury and antisocial behaviour.
So, what does firm JCDecaux who holds the advertising rights under their CityCycle agreement with Council think? We’re awaiting answers to a couple of questions we pointed in their direction, but presumably it will be all for it: their clients’ messages are simply bound to be seen more if people are constantly gawking at those going potties at the base of said signs, like the one pictured on our front cover at the bottom of the Valley Mall.
And think of the opportunity for specifically targeted marketing to suit the situation: ads for toilet paper and air fresheners come immediately to mind. There must surely be others. Given the fast- food rubbish these kids quaff nowadays, haemorrhoidal creams?
No, it’s a deadset winner. And we thank The Courier-Mail for giving the idea space to breathe, even if it might stink just a teensy, weesy bit.
Above: The Courier-Mail article that made such a splash.
