Staff memo confirms LTD’s hush-hush plan to navigate Trump’s toilet policy in Springfield

Public restrooms for bus passengers will return to LTD’s Springfield Station. 

Beyond that, Lane Transit District officials aren’t saying much about their plans.

Transit officials shut down access to public restrooms June 29, worried about running afoul of a Trump administration policy calling for the “importance of sex-separated intimate spaces and athletic competitions.”

For the transit agency, which relies heavily on federal dollars, that policy posed a problem: It conflicts with a state anti-discrimination law that allows a person to access public restrooms based on their gender identity, not their birth sex.

To comply with the federal policy, local officials shut down full access to restrooms in the Springfield station, which had 16,375 passenger arrivals and departures during the first 10 business days of July.

Designed as traditional men’s and women’s restrooms, they didn’t provide the privacy necessary to follow the federal directive and also allow equal access for all gender identities as required by state law.

As with their decision to end public restroom access, LTD officials were reluctant to discuss specifics of their toilet issues in Springfield. They didn’t rush to share the news of their plans with the public. But an internal staff memo obtained by Lookout Eugene-Springfield shows restroom changes are in the pipeline.

Starting Tuesday, Aug. 11, bus operators will start using the formerly public restrooms in the lobby hallway, temporarily sharing them with building tenants, Josh Schmit, interim director of transit operations and public safety, wrote in a Friday, Aug. 7, memo to staffers.

The station’s tenants include a barber shop and a Mexican restaurant.

Meanwhile, two separate single-user restrooms adjacent to the station’s customer service area will be “modified for customer use,” the memo says. 

“Once that work is complete, building tenants will transition to the new customer restrooms, and the larger restrooms will be reserved for LTD employees only,” Schmit’s memo says.

Contacted by a reporter, Anni Katz, a spokesperson for Lane Transit District, asked to see a copy of the memo, saying she hadn’t seen it yet. 

Upon receipt, Katz confirmed that the single-user restrooms will be available to transit customers — not just building tenants — when modifications are complete.

Beyond that, LTD isn’t answering any questions, such as what modifications are necessary or even what may be under consideration.

“A number of modifications are under consideration for the switch from an employee-only restroom to a customer-facing, publicly accessible one,” Katz said, declining to answer a follow-up question about what’s under consideration.

The project is still in the planning and decision phase, Katz said. 

But for now, plan accordingly on no toilet access at the Springfield Station for the foreseeable future.

Katz would not answer questions on how long the project will take. She also would not even say how many months the initial planning and design phase may take. 

“I don’t have any additional details to share beyond what I provided earlier,” Katz said.

Bus passengers whose transit journeys take them to LTD’s downtown Eugene Station will have better luck with bathroom access: That station has gender-neutral single-user stalls. 

Due to their design, those stalls don’t violate state law or the federal directive.