New plan would add 15 new bathrooms to the National Mall for a total of 21

The National Park Service plans to add 15 restrooms to the National Mall, bringing the total number across the area to 21 with 175 total toilets.

In its design study for the new bathrooms, the park service notes there are currently nine “comfort stations” with 96 toilets across the grassy area of the Mall, with none located east of 15th Street NW.

Bathrooms are more than a five-minute walk from the grassy area east of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History and the western, northern and southern fringes of the National Mall. Under the new plan, a bathroom would be more than a five-minute walk only from a small area next to Third Street SW.

Bathrooms will be built north and south of the Lincoln Memorial, east of the Constitution Gardens, at the Survey Lodge southwest of the Washington Monument, at West Potomac Park, along the Tidal Basin, at East Basin Drive SW and a parking lot near the George Mason and Jefferson memorials.

Four restrooms will be built on the eastern grassy part of the Mall where there are currently no such facilities — near the National Museum of American History, the National Museum of Natural History, the National Air and Space Museum and the Smithsonian Castle. 

In addition, two facilities at the Sylvan Theater and west of the Constitution Gardens will be replaced, and a facility near the D.C. War Memorial will be replaced and relocated closer to the Lincoln Memorial.

Existing facilities with 75 toilets and urinals at the MLK Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, the entrance and exit of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial, the World War II Memorial and the Washington Monument Lodge will remain.

The comfort stations at the Lincoln Memorial, near the museums on the eastern portion of the National Mall, the Tidal Basin, East Basin Drive SW and west of the Constitution Gardens also will include visitor or food kiosks. 

The park service will present its plan to the National Capital Planning Commission on Oct. 3. The exact timeline of the plan, if approved by the commission and implemented, has yet to be determined, but construction of all the restrooms would take about 10 years, park service spokesperson Mike Litterst told the Washington Business Journal.

“We hope to start design of the new facilities at the Lincoln Memorial next year, with construction starting as early as 2026,” Mr. Litterst told WTOP.