We found Denver’s porta-potty algorithm

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It’s a situation all Denverites have found themselves in.

After a quick lap around a public park with a tall to-go cup of coffee, your bladder is unnervingly full. And the public bathroom doors are locked.

All hope may seem lost. But then, almost like it erupted from the ground in your hour of need, a plastic-bound, kinda-stinky porta-potty awaits you.

But make no mistake. The convenient presence of porta-potties — or portalets or porta-johns or honeybuckets or Johnnys-on-the-spot or thunderboxes — isn’t the result of magic. It’s the result of pure, calculated math, courtesy of a new algorithm used by Denver Parks and Recreation.

“Porta-potties are a huge part of what we do,” said Jolon Clark, the executive director of Denver Parks and Recreation. “Trying to make sure that folks have a place to go when they're out and about and exploring and recreating in our parks is not the most glamorous part of what we do, but is certainly an important thing for our users.”

Goodbye traditional plumbing, hello mysterious dark blue liquid

There are 94 Denver parks without plumbed restrooms, and even the brick-and-mortar loos that do exist aren’t very reliable.

“Some of our plumbed restrooms are so old that they don't meet all the (Americans with Disabilities Act) requirements,” Clark said.

Others, like the ones in City Park, have been indefinitely closed. And since 2020, there’s also been an uptick in vandalism and copper theft, which has kept some restrooms locked up.

Porta-potties have been a tool to supplement parks without a functional bathroom.

In years past, parks and rec has taken an imprecise, vibes-based approach to placing porta-potties across the city’s green spaces.

“Historically, one of the things that really drove a lot of portalets was people calling in and saying, ‘Hey, there's not a portalet, there's not enough portalets. Add a portalet here,’ that kind of thing,” Clark said.

Enter a stinky lil' spreadsheet

“This is a new dashboard that was built by one of our newer employees to really dig into that data,” Clark said.

Denverite obtained a copy of the spreadsheet via a public records request.

The data it tracks is expansive and complicated. It measures weekly attendance for nearly all city-owned parks. It tracks how many people apply for permits to use the park for special events. It even notes if a park has a playground.

One formula considers whether a park needs a porta-potty in the first place. It looks at whether parks have a plumbed restroom or nearby public restrooms, and whether they host athletic events. It also checks the park’s equity score, which looks at factors like investment, access and the makeup of the nearby neighborhood.

Using that formula, the spreadsheet shows that 99 parks meet the criteria for a porta-potty.

Once it’s determined that a park needs a porta-potty, another formula determines how many. It basically spits out a number that roughly calculates how often someone would need to use the restroom at a specific park.

Porta-potties save Parks and Rec a bowl-load of money

In total, Parks and Recreation’s spreadsheet showed that between April and September, there’s a need for 251 porta-potties. Certain parks have up to 13 porta-potties during the warmer months. In the winter, that’s reduced to 141.

Getting all of those porta-potties and maintaining them costs the city about $1.1 million, a far cheaper cost than what it would take to keep traditional plumbed restrooms open.

“The capital costs, the maintenance costs, the upkeep costs on plumbed restrooms is not even in the same ballpark as portalets,” Clark said.

In an era where Denver’s government often pursues shiny, expensive projects meant to wow its residents — think 16th Street’s renovation or the pending Park Hill Park — porta-potties might seem like a let down. But for Clark, it’s a simple solution to the “everybody poops” problem.

“It's not going to be as pretty, but it does get the job done,” he said.

Paolo's lived in Colorado since 2020, but he didn't become an official Denverite until he moved close to City Park in 2023. Since then, he's been obsessed with learning as much as he can about the city. As Denverite's Neighborhood Reporter, he now gets to do that for a living. Before coming to Denverite, he worked on CPR News' daily news desk, NPR and KUNR Public Radio in Reno, Nevada. Paolo can often be found roaming East Colfax, lounging at Cheesman Park, or slowly hitting up every single ice cream shop in the city.

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