When it comes to getting anything done, New York’s in the crapper. Case in point: A years-in-the-making plan to install five Portland Loo public toilets in city parks could run city taxpayers as much as $5.3 million. More than a million per john: Insane. 

The average cost of putting in public-park toilets hit $3.6 million in 2019, according to The City. These new setups, at around $185,000 each, were supposed to bring that down.

But the local regulatory climate and byzantine bureaucracy look set to send it back skyward. As a Portland Loo sales manager told The City, “I built 180 of these, from Portland to Alaska to Miami, and I’ve never had this certification problem . . . New York City has been the most difficult to have a permit approved for.”

Then again, the phase-one Second Avenue Subway cost $2.5 billion per mile, as much as 12 times more expensive than similar projects in union-loving Europe, also thanks to endless red tape and total unaccountability.

Past pushes for public NYC toilets fell afoul of issues like the city’s inability to stop junkies from using them to shoot up or the homeless from colonizing them. 

Most of America manages these issues with little hassle. But until the city and state get serious about cutting red tape and holding accountable the officials who initiate and manage these projects, it seems New Yorkers just can’t have nice things. Or even a bathroom.