Too Much Traffic, Not Enough Toilets: SF City Officials Revisit Fourth of July Mishaps

Galli was one of many who decided to take their chances on San Francisco’s notoriously foggy Fourth of July to see what he hoped would be a fun show: the city planned to launch fireworks from the Golden Gate Bridge instead of its usual location on Fisherman’s Wharf in honor of America’s 250th anniversary.

But upon arriving at the Marina Green, he was met with a different kind of spectacle. Galli described long bathroom lines snaking down Marina Boulevard and law enforcement officials attempting to control the significant queue of people waiting to use the facilities.

Galli said he saw children and adults in significant discomfort because of how long they had been waiting to use the restroom.

“ My one friend was basically doing the potty dance because they were like, ‘I have to pee so bad, like so, so bad,’” Galli said.

“ I definitely saw a few kids, that said, they needed to pee bad, and people were nice enough to let them in, but it would be really hard if you had kids at that event because there were very few bathrooms,” he continued.

Galli estimated there were between five and 10 portable restrooms available for public use where he waited at Little Marina Green. Eventually, he said, Recreation and Parks Department staff opened up the permanent bathrooms there, in an attempt to ease the significant lines.

Despite arriving two hours before the show began, he said he spent so long waiting in line that he missed the first five minutes of the 15-minute show.

“Once we started missing the fireworks, that was disappointing for sure,” Galli said.

He added that the experience left him feeling like there was no unified communication or planning for the major city event.

When questioned about how many temporary toilets were made available for the event, Charles Lutvak, spokesperson for Mayor Daniel Lurie, referred inquiries to the city’s Recreation and Parks Department.

Providing restrooms along the waterfront was a citywide effort, including properties under the jurisdiction of Rec and Parks, the Port of San Francisco and the National Park Service, according to Daniel Montes, communications manager for Rec and Parks.

Montes said Rec and Parks provided 30 portable toilets and 12 permanent ones at the Marina Green, based on previous large-scale events such as Fleet Week, but said, “demand at this citywide event clearly exceeded available restroom capacity.”

“We understand that long restroom lines are frustrating, and this experience will help inform our planning when coordinating future events of this scale,” Montes said.

The Port of San Francisco did not respond to a request for comment.

In total, there were 127 toilets made available for public use for the Fourth of July show, according to Joshua Winchell, chief of communications and special park uses for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

Winchell said the park arranged for 60 portable toilets to complement its 27 permanent ones, and the city provided an additional 40 portable toilets. He also said the park saw “unprecedented visitation driven by the city’s historic fireworks display.”

He said that the 127 toilets were “far short” of what was needed to support the attendees.

“We will work with the City of San Francisco and our other partners to ensure that enough bathrooms and other resources required for enjoyable park visits will be in place for future large-scale events, such as Fleet Week,” Winchell said.

The number of restrooms provided falls drastically short of industry standards for events, according to Vivienne Errington-Barnes, CEO and founder of the San Francisco-headquartered event planning company Shift + Alt Events — which she said has organized events with as many as 300,000 attendees.

“There is a simple, hard and fast rule for bathrooms. It’s industry-wide and global. One bathroom per 65 people, and one bathroom per 50 people if they’re drinking alcohol,” Errington-Barnes said.

Based on the GGNRA’s estimate of toilets provided for the event and the city’s estimate for total attendance, there was one restroom for every 787 people in attendance.

Errington-Barnes said that not having an appropriate number of restrooms can force people to publicly urinate and put pregnant and elderly people, as well as children and their parents, in difficult, embarrassing situations.

“It’s almost like it wasn’t planned,” Errington-Barnes said. “ Either they didn’t know how many people were coming, or they had somebody produce it that just didn’t understand that there is a very hard and fast rule.”

Galli said large events in San Francisco like the Fourth of July can be “really fun,” but said he’d like to see better planning and communication, like a map of where bathrooms will be, for future city events.

San Francisco Supervisor Stephen Sherrill, whose district includes the Marina, is calling for a hearing in September to ensure that this year’s annual Fleet Week celebration, set to take place in the same area in October, has a “robust operational plan to ensure success.”

That hearing will include planning for bathroom access, according to Jack Hebb, Supervisor Sherrill’s communications director.