Commuters wishing to relieve themselves at Whatcom Transportation Authority’s downtown bus station will need to use portable toilets for the foreseeable future.
The agency closed the bathrooms inside the station Friday because they had become a regular destination for people seeking a secluded place to use illegal drugs.
The bathrooms at Cordata Station will be closed, too, although WTA Public Information Officer Maureen McCarthy said no date had been set yet for the Cordata closures.
She also said WTA doesn’t know when it can reopen the bathrooms. The Whatcom County Health Department found methamphetamine residue in the downtown restrooms, and a certified decontamination contractor will clean them before they reopen, McCarthy said.
“It’s a priority to get the restrooms reopened as soon as we feel we can do so safely,” McCarthy said. “We really don’t like not offering indoor restrooms, and hope to move quickly to reopen them.”
WTA is looking into ways to make the restrooms accessible by permission only.
Drug contamination wasn’t the main reason for shutting down the bathrooms. McCarthy said WTA wanted to eliminate a “secluded space for illegal activity” and put an end to a recurring problem: riders or transit employees walking in on people who are using drugs.
WTA found the same problem to a lesser degree at Cordata Station. Those bathrooms haven’t been tested yet for drug contamination, McCarthy said.
“Since we’re working on a way to prevent illegal drug use, it seems prudent to implement the same solution in both places,” she said.
