To the Editor:
Leah Goodridge’s Opinion visitor essay, “New Yorkers Deserve More Public Restrooms” (Dec. 30), makes the sort of good sense that every one community-minded of us ought to be capable to agree on, even on this divisive political local weather.
Councilwoman Sandy Nurse’s invoice that will require the set up of a free, public rest room for each 2,000 New York Metropolis residents by 2035 and Councilwoman Rita Joseph’s invoice to require public restrooms in all municipal buildings within the metropolis make good sense.
Having lived within the New York metropolitan space for a great portion of our lives, we’ve got usually gone in search of a public rest room with out success. Making folks depend on non-public companies for restroom reduction, whether or not or not they’re clients, will not be the suitable resolution.
In the event you dwell in a contemporary, compassionate metropolis, city or village, a fairly proportionate variety of public restrooms is a necessity. This can be a drawback whose resolution is clear and lengthy overdue.
Gerald Sternberg
Merle Sternberg
Madison, Wis.
To the Editor:
As has been famous in The Times and elsewhere, Japan is a mannequin in offering its folks with ubiquitous entry to public restrooms which might be spotless — and sometimes fantastically designed.
In cities like Tokyo, many of those public bogs are contained in the stations of town’s huge subway and rail system. Each metro station I visited in Tokyo had at the least one public restroom. This consistency of infrastructure ensures that you just all the time know the place to look when you’ve gotten the urge to go.
As New York Metropolis explores requiring extra municipal restrooms (and I hope it does), it ought to take into account working with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to broaden public restrooms inside its personal subway infrastructure, which is each intensive and extremely utilized.
There are a restricted variety of present public bogs inside some subway stations, however they aren’t all the time open or properly maintained. Given how integral the subway is to the each day routine of so many New Yorkers, having a clear public restroom inside each subway station would considerably enhance the standard of life for everybody within the metropolis.
Heath Madom
Oakland, Calif.
To the Editor:
Clear and accessible public restrooms usually are not luxuries; they’re important infrastructure. That’s why the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation last year announced an over $150 million investment to construct 46 new public bogs over the subsequent 5 years and reconstruct a further 36 — including to the greater than 700 restrooms that we already present each day, totally free, to anybody who wants them. For context: In New York Metropolis, there are extra public park bogs than Starbucks areas.
Sadly, Leah Goodridge referred to a deceptive Metropolis Council report on the cleanliness and availability of restrooms. The report cherry-picked 7 p.c of park restrooms to color an image of neglect. These restrooms had been chosen due to constituent complaints obtained by Council members and low rankings from the Parks Inspection Program.
Even there, we had been gratified to see that almost all had been discovered to be clear and freed from litter. In actual fact, on any given day greater than 90 p.c of our amenities are open, clear and protected, as measured by our inner audits.
We’re making a significant funding in our public restrooms, and we’re grateful to the a whole lot of park staff who work tirelessly each day to verify they’re cleaned, stocked and properly maintained.
Sue Donoghue
New York
The author is the commissioner of New York Metropolis’s Division of Parks and Recreation.
A Soldier’s Ethical Trauma
To the Editor:
Re “Signs of C.T.E. Vexed Soldier in Vegas Blast” (entrance web page, Jan. 6):
This text concerning the ultimate epoch within the lifetime of Matthew Livelsberger, the previous Military Particular Forces Group grasp sergeant who took his life and blew up his Tesla Cybertruck outdoors the Trump Worldwide Resort in Las Vegas, ends with a quote that calls into query your complete premise of the article.
Mr. Livelsberger is depicted as a sort and loving man who probably suffered from a progressive mind damage incurred from many explosions in his army coaching and fight expertise. It’s implied that his ultimate motion was a manifestation of a extreme flare-up of his neurological situation.
But the article ends by quoting Mr. Livelsberger, who in a be aware explains his suicide as an try and “cleanse my thoughts of the brothers I’ve misplaced and relieve myself of the burden of the lives I took.”
These seem like the phrases of a soldier whose service was a shock not solely to his mind but in addition to his conscience. And that’s one thing that no quantity of blast safety or medical remedy can ever mitigate. If solely the article helped us to know the ethical trauma that Matthew Livelsberger additionally suffered for serving his nation.
Samuel Pensler
Los Angeles
Medical doctors Must Weigh Sufferers
To the Editor:
Re “Some Doctors’ Offices De-emphasize the Scale” (entrance web page, Dec. 29):
The concept physicians ought to cease weighing sufferers is patently absurd. Physicians don’t ask sufferers if they need their blood strain or pulse fee checked. It’s a doctor’s responsibility to judge every affected person in the very best and most full method attainable, and these quantitative measurements, along with eliciting an entire historical past and performing a bodily examination, are necessary.
Any doctor who shames a affected person about weight or any bodily attribute is professionally derelict and ought to be admonished. Since weight problems has been proven to be clearly detrimental to a person’s well being, a doctor ought to handle it in a nonjudgmental method, providing the affected person a number of choices to handle the issue.
Many individuals, even physicians, keep away from measures which might be extremely really helpful by medical societies, similar to smoking cessation or most cancers screening. That’s extraordinarily unlucky, however it’s each particular person’s proper. Nonetheless, to dismiss a significant and easy measurement as a result of some sufferers would possibly keep away from doctor visits is illogical, and is a disservice to all sufferers who worth their well being.
David Guttman
Scarsdale, N.Y.
The author has practiced drugs for greater than 40 years and is board licensed in inner drugs and gastroenterology.
Entry to Environmental Information
To the Editor:
Re “This New Year, Resolve to Green Up Your News Feed” (Opinion visitor essay, nytimes.com, Dec. 30):
I tremendously appreciated Margaret Renkl’s essay providing quite a few wonderful sources of knowledge on environmental points. With an incoming administration that’s as soon as once more more likely to try and eradicate any mention of climate change from authorities web sites, it’s extra necessary than ever to make sure the general public’s entry to goal, evidence-based sources of knowledge on the setting.
As carbon emissions and world temperatures attain all-time highs, it’s crucial that all of us have entry to dependable information to tell our choices on the poll field and in our each day lives.
Chad Edwards
Altadena, Calif.
