Late-night visitors to downtown State College will soon have more opportunities to answer nature's call.

The borough this season is opening the public bathrooms in the major parking garages for the overnight hours, said public-works director Mark Whitfield. The affected garages are on West Beaver Avenue, South Fraser Street and South Pugh Street.

Public restrooms in those garages haven't been open overnight in at least 15 years. But new improvements, such as electric hand dryers instead of paper towels, should prevent much of the vandalism that damaged them in earlier years, Whitfield said. They've always been open during daytime hours.

"We'll see what happens," he said. The change should take effect shortly, he said, if it hasn't already.

At the same time, Whitfield said, the borough is trying to identify downtown locations where it can position a handful of temporary portable toilets. Longer term, the borough is aiming to have some more permanent public toilets added downtown, though details have yet to be sorted out, Whitfield said.

The temporary portable toilets may be in place within weeks, perhaps including near the McAllister Street parking deck. Whitfield said the borough is looking to locate them tactfully, where they "will not be a detriment to the downtown."

He said a budget for the efforts has not been finalized.

"All of this is about providing opportunities for people," Whitfield said. " ... There are not a lot of public restrooms in the downtown. We recognize that."

The borough is implementing the changes in conjunction with a new ordinance on public urination. That ordinance, approved by the Borough Council in May, went into effect this week, raising maximum fines for public urination and defecation to $600 -- up from $300. The new minimum fine is $300.

Borough Manager Tom Fountaine said State College got its ordinance inspiration from Pittsburgh, which recently took a similar step. Urination especially is a recurring problem in State College: Police issued 311 citations for public urination from June 2008 to May 2009, up from 265 citations in the same period in 2005-2006.

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