The men's restroom is closed. I ended up peeing behind the building, Brigham City Rest Area, I-15, Box Elder County, Utah | Tourist Services, Public Art

They should have brought in porta potties.  You see the world differently when one of your medications for heart disease is a diuretic (I actually take two different ones).

It might have been because the building seems like it is still under construction on the interior?  

The building was closed but the restrooms are to the side and were theoretically open.  The women's and a family restroom.  Men were directed to the family restroom.  I couldn't wait the line was long.

Many of the convenience stores in the Intermountain region have restrooms, as they are positioned to serve longer distance travelers.  Even in cities, Maverik convenience stores have restrooms.

But we stopped at one place, two stalls, one each for men and women.  

The line was so long, I decided it was easier to go to the gas station on the other side of the freeway--where the wait was blissfully short.

Alas, the Texaco brand is no longer in business.  They marketed clean restrooms as a featured element.  This ad is from 1941.

The Brigham City rest stop had some decent amenities, including a pollinator garden and a small fenced in pet area for small dogs.

The pollinator garden is an extension of my concept that we should plan for public art when building structures in parks, but in public buildings more generally ("Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Five | Planning for Public Art as an element of park facilities"). 

This case being purposeful landscaping that satisfies multiple constituencies, even insects (fauna).

Some municipalities like NYC have a percent for art program where they incorporate public art into new buildings.  This should be extended to landscaping.

In Utah, many public and private properties have nice plantings as part of their parking lots.  Years ago, I was blown away when then Mayor Sheila Dixon of Baltimore had herbs that people could pick as part of the landscaping at City Hall.

The Pollinator Garden at the Brigham City Rest Area on I-15 in Box Elder County, Utah was planted recently.

But it doesn't have to be complicated.  An elementary school in Hailey, Idaho has a small mural on the backside of the building.

And they've incorporated public art into bus shelter stops on Woodside Boulevard, which is served by the Mountain Rides Transit System, which like buses in a lot of resort areas (Sun Valley) is free, primarily as a transportation demand management strategy for employee transportation, to reduce demand for parking vis a vis "higher value tourists".  Also see "Bus stops as neighborhood focal points and opportunities for placemaking."

Another way to think about it is what Project for Public Spaces calls the "Power of 10" and how at different scales--city, neighborhood, destination, place--you need 10 things to do.

This Hailey bus stop also has a Little Free Library--and I snagged a couple myself.  

So three things to do (wait for the bus, look at the public art, browse the Little Free Library.  Considering this wasn't a primary arterial, that's pretty good.

Learning from anywhere and everywhere.  When I first got involved in the Main Street commercial district revitalization program in the DC neighborhood of H Street NE (""The community development approach and the revitalization of DC's H Street corridor: congruent or oppositional approaches?"), members from various programs across the city got some support to attend the national conference.  Early on it was in Baltimore.  

Most of the people from DC's "urban programs" were haughty with the "small town" problems, believing they had nothing to learn from them.  I argued that the programs weren't "all of DC" but smaller commercial districts outside of Downtown, and they were equal or smaller in size compared to many of the other programs.

I've always had the attitude I can learn from anywhere.  Ketchum, Idaho, where the Sun Valley Ski Resort is, and nearby towns like Hailey had plenty of best practice and/or provocative ideas that hit me at a good time, when I was in the midst of writing a large grant for a playground for Sugar House Park in Salt Lake.

My original concept had everything but the kitchen sink.  I joked there was a fine line between a playground and an amusement park.  Urban design features in both towns, plus Sun Valley, helped me look at my concept with fresher eyes, and the recognition that it needed "editing" and refinement.

Some elements make less sense now.  Other elements take on a new prominence.  But still editing and "simplification" of a sort--still a complicated project, but less cluttered, less full of stuff, and "cleaner" and better.