Iowa State University features well-placed restrooms throughout the campus, sometimes even matching the caliber of the restrooms found at high-profile buildings/complexes like international airports and trade centers, as seen in Marston Hall and most of the library. However, the men’s restrooms often fall short due to a distinct lack of urinal partitions (or dividers)—the protruding surfaces that separate the urinals on either side and pad the end of arrays. The lack of this one-time investment causes several issues, including, but not limited to, reduced parallelism among multiple urinals, uneven wear on units (Smither, 2025), propagation of diseases leading to urine tract infections (How Much Space Should Be Between Urinals?, n.d.), reduced privacy leading to disjunction from ADA compliance (Visser, 2025), etc.
Most restrooms feature multiple urinals to promote parallelism. Ideally, for a set of urinals under maximal traffic, all units will be occupied at all times (allowing some time between usage), allowing for a greater throughput, as visualized by Figure 1.
Figure 1: three urinals under maximal parallel usage.However, a lack of dividers forces users to pad themselves with a vacant urinal on either side for privacy and to avoid general discomfort. In practice, this renders half of the urinals unusable even under maximal usage, as rendered by Figure 2.
Figure 2: four urinals with only half usage under maximal traffic.In some cases, unintentionally inconsiderate persons choose to use the middle-most urinals in odd-numbered installations, rendering up to 67% of the units unusable until the middle unit is vacated, as demonstrated by Figure 3.
Figure 3: an inconsiderate person alienates two urinals.The reduced flux significantly increases the wait times, often causing significant crowding in popular restrooms like the one in Hoover Hall (Figure 4 documents a rare period of no traffic). The wait times bleed into the students’ travel times, reducing the already limiting 15 minutes between blocks. This primarily affects academic performance negatively as lost in-class time accumulates significantly over time, among other indirect effects.
Figure 4: urinals in Hoover Hall don’t feature partitions.
Most men’s restrooms have three urinals; everyone has developed a mutual understanding that the middle urinal is off-limits. This excessive strain and damage on the two urinals that could have otherwise been distributed between all units increases the frequency of repairs required to keep the restroom functional by 50%.Furthermore, there often are restrooms like on the Fulmer House of Linden Hall where two of the three urinals are off limits because the middle one is universally awkward and one of the side units is too exposed due to an adjacent corridor, as documented by Figure 5. Curiously, the model of the urinal on the right is significantly older than the others because it never gets used or replaced. Cases like this increase the frequency of repairs by 200% and require an additional divider at the end of the array.
Figure 5: the third urinal is exposed at 270 degrees.
Dividers serve more than just an action on privacy. These partitions capture significant particulates atomized by the urinals' flat surfaces. Though the walls built into the geometry of urinals and the user’s body itself do a decent job of containing most particles, unfortunately, some propagate onto the bodies of other persons, as illustrated by Figure 6. This promotes the transmittal of urine tract infections, retrograde absorption of foreign particles, and other diseases (Wang et al., 2020).
Figure 6: atomizations from the urine of person (2) propogates to persons (1) and (3).Dividers do an exceptional job of minimizing the spread of particles, as noted in Figure 7. The longer the dividers are, the better they narrow down the window of spread; an optimal length exists due to diminishing returns on their effectiveness as their lengths increase. This often is handled by the manufacturer of the dividers.
Figure 7: partitions eliminate the exchange of particulates.
Dividers come with a one-time purchase price ranging from $100 to $200. A common divider like the “Lavex 24" x 48" Stainless Steel Urinal Partition” costs $155 per unit with an installation time of about 10-18 minutes per unit (WebstaurantStore, n.d.).
Urinal partitions are entirely static, reducing the complexity and costs of maintenance. Cleaning a single plastic divider takes about 3 minutes (Lowden, 2021). With an average janitor’s salary of $15 per hour as of 2025 (ZipRecruiter), each partition will cost about $270 to maintain annually if cleaned daily. Repairing dividers is also a primitive process requiring a few bolts and no more than 10 minutes speaking from personal experience with installations of similar caliber.Though it is hard to estimate the costs of maintaining dividers across the whole campus due to a lack of data on the number of restrooms, a reasonable estimate can be made on Linden Hall, my dorm hall. Standing tall at five floors with a men’s bathroom on each floor with three urinals per restroom, maintaining all dividers would cost about $4100 annually. With a population of 321 students (Linden - Department of Residence, 2025), of which half are males, maintaining partitions would cost a modest $26 per male student annually.
Installing urinal partitions across the campus will be a significant leap toward bringing hygiene and privacy for men to the next level. A move of a similar scale was made to make menstrual products available across most women’s restrooms; urinal dividers are a natural next step. Dividers can be viewed as an investment in the health of the students of Iowa State. Atomic changes cumulate; this incremental investment is an investment in the overall mood of the population and the reputation of on-campus life. Given the relatively low inceptive costs, this enhancement is a fantastic consideration with the goodwill of all in mind.
Deep, A. (2025). Good Urine Atomization [Figure]. Unpublished.Deep, A. (2025). Hoover Urinals [Figure]. Unpublished.Deep, A. (2025). Ideal 3 Lane Flow [Figure]. Unpublished.Deep, A. (2025). Inconsiderate 3 Lane Flow [Figure]. Unpublished.Deep, A. (2025). Linden Urinals [Figure]. Unpublished.Deep, A. (2025). Poor Urine Atomization [Figure]. Unpublished.Deep, A. (2025). Realistic 4 Lane Flow [Figure]. Unpublished.How Much Space Should Be Between Urinals? (n.d.). One Point Partitions. Retrieved April 13, 2025, from https://onepointpartitions.com/blog/2020/07/22/how-much-space-should-be-between-urinals/ Janitor salary in Iowa. (n.d.). ZipRecruiter.Linden - Department of Residence. (2025, January 8). Department of Residence. https://www.housing.iastate.edu/halls/linden/ Lowden, L. (2021, April 11). How to clean and maintain plastic laminate toilet partitions - Metpar. Metpar. https://metpar.com/how-to-clean-and-maintain-plastic-laminate-toilet-partitions/ Smither, R. (2025, March 6). ADA urinal Layout Requirements: Everything you need to know. American Specialties, Inc. https://americanspecialties.com/ada-urinal-layout-requirements-everything-you-need-to-know/ Visser, C. (2025, February 4). ADA Requirements for Urinals: Standards and compliance. Accessibility Checker. https://www.accessibilitychecker.org/blog/ada-requirements-for-urinals/ Wang, J., Li, Y., Liu, X., & Cao, X. (2020). Virus transmission from urinals. Physics of Fluids, 32(8). https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0021450 WebstaurantStore. (n.d.). Lavex 24" x 48" Stainless Steel Urinal Partition. https://www.webstaurantstore.com/partition-urinal-ss-24x48-20-ga-304-ss-1-thick/712SSUP2448.html
§Reduced Concurrency
Figure 1: three urinals under maximal parallel usage.Figure 2: four urinals with only half usage under maximal traffic.Figure 3: an inconsiderate person alienates two urinals.Figure 4: urinals in Hoover Hall don’t feature partitions.§Uneven Unit Degradation
Figure 5: the third urinal is exposed at 270 degrees.§Bacterial and Particulate Propagation
Figure 6: atomizations from the urine of person (2) propogates to persons (1) and (3).Figure 7: partitions eliminate the exchange of particulates.