Photo illustration by Kyle Talley
Lance Song is hoping people will find comfort and relief using his mobile app.
Launched last fall, his map-based PortaDash is designed to let users post locations of public restrooms and portable toilets.
A first-time app developer whose day job is in marketing analytics, Song started running with the idea after nature called. “One day, I was about 2 miles out [on a run] and I had an emergency situation. My face started turning really red,” he says. “I started to look for a Porta-John. I found one down the block. I rushed to it, but it was locked. I started panicking.”
Unlike friends’ similar stories, he says, his run turned out fine when he found another porta-potty down the road. Toilet-humor jokes about a Strava-like app for runners to map and rate public restrooms led Song to try his hand at developing his own.
His first instinct was to search for a large database of information about public restrooms and porta-potties, but the companies he contacted said they didn’t keep such records. He discovered that the temporary nature of portable toilets would require more legwork.
So, he started watching app-development tutorials on YouTube and gathered information on crowdsourcing.
Access to public restrooms has been a health policy issue in cities across the country. In Philadelphia, the local government has been installing permanent, stand-alone public restrooms since 2024. In Richmond, the city is adding permanent public bathrooms and water fountains as part of the ongoing Brown’s Island redevelopment project.
While the idea for PortaDash is based on his experiences with friends, Song thinks his app has a universal appeal. “My ambition is for this to be a free service to the community,” he says. “That’s why I’m asking users to contribute, so that other runners, parents with little kids and travelers can have peace of mind.”
