"In 1969, California Assemblywoman March Fong Eu smashed a porcelain toilet with an axe in front of the California state capitol, protesting the misogyny of restrooms that charged entrance fees for stalls but not urinals. She was not alone in her frustration. The grassroots organization CEPTIA—the Committee to End Pay Toilets in America—mobilized against pay toilets, putting out a quarterly newsletter (the Free Toilet Paper) and exchanging warring pamphlets with Nik-O-Lok, the leading pay-toilet manufacturer. The group won a citywide ordinance banning pay toilets in Chicago in 1973, followed by bans in Alaska, California, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, and Wyoming." -- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-19/why-the-u...

If the government makes it illegal to profit from providing a good or service, fewer people will provide that good or service.

> but they can and do make them for customers only.

Starbucks doesn't anymore after the PR incident couple of years ago. There are 15k Starbucks in USA.

That about 1 Starbuck for every 600km², hardly a replacement for public bathrooms.

of course the vast majority of the US is open land, still, far from any Starbucks or humans, so the distribution of Starbucks places them close to humans for some huge percentile of humans at any given point in time in the US, by design of course.

Sure. How many public restrooms do you think USA should have?

More than Starbucks alone can or should be forced to provide. Where that number lies I'm not entirely sure, but I imagine interstate commerce and population densities would be a pretty good starting point.

1% of the population, so around 3 million, would be a good starting point.