Even an Operating APT Has Issues

By Eric Richardson
Published: Sunday, June 03, 2007, at 05:03PM

Eric Richardson [Flickr]

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — It would be nice to think that once an APT gets to the point where it’s operational, we can cross it off the Toilet Watch list. Not quite so, though. Even $250,000 toilets have maintenance issues.

A few weeks back Celia posted about finding the APT out of order, and today the door seemed to have lost its will to open and close.

The unit wasn’t displaying any kind of error, and was glad to take your quarter, but without a functioning door it wasn’t going to provide a pleasant user experience. The door would unlock itself, but it wouldn’t open or close under its own power.

Update (Monday): Passing by at 7:30 this morning there was a maintenance crew hard at work on getting the APT back into service.

Pictured is Town Crier Don Garza taking on a new role as APT doorman.

This story belongs to the following topics:

Topic:
Toilet Watch

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Comments

Whitman Lam writes:

How was the inside ? Was it nice and clean, and bottle / syringe free ? That’s all I care about.

# on Jun.03.2007 AT 07:49 PM

Eric Richardson writes:

It looked perfectly clean from what I saw. It had just gone through a cleaning cycle.

# on Jun.03.2007 AT 08:31 PM

celia writes:

i have pictures of the inside on my blog post, the one that eric mentioned.

# on Jun.04.2007 AT 12:10 AM

Scott Mercer writes:

I used the APT about a week ago. After I came out, the CBS/Decaux repair guys were there, about to do some maintenance. They opened up the back and worked on the toilet. This revealed some of the very complicated Rube Goldbergian machinery that makes the toilet do what it does.

Apparently, after you leave the vicinity and the door shuts, the toilet withdraws back into the wall, where it is cleaned and dried! Then, after the process is done, the whole toilet slides forward, returning into its proper place, ready for its next use. I find quite easy to believe this thing would be prone to frequent breakdowns and require near-constant maintenance.

# on Jun.06.2007 AT 02:49 PM