As Ben Franklin once said, “In this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes.”

Another certainty that the founding father may have been too coy to mention: bathroom breaks. We are all humbled by the need to go when the time comes; it is each of our destinies to one day find ourselves searching, in various states of desperation, for a bathroom.

Fortunately, a thoroughly modern quote applies to this age-old calamity: There’s an app for that.

Created by Richmonder Lance Song, PortaDash provides a map of bathrooms and porta-potties — not just in Richmond, but across the globe — leveraging data from OpenStreetMap. Beyond its base map, PortaDash thrives on crowdsourced intel. Users can add locations, leave reviews and log vital details: gender designations, wheelchair accessibility, the presence of baby-changing tables, whether the facility is free to use, and more (we hope Richmond’s “serial pooper” has downloaded it).

For Song, the app was born out of necessity.

An avid runner, Song typically starts his day around 5:30 a.m. to fit in some exercise before the school run and the workday begin. He vividly recalls the first time the urge struck while he was miles into a route. The quiet solitude of a morning jog suddenly morphed into a high-stakes thriller, the timer of an internal bomb flashing a gut-clenching countdown. He desperately scanned the pre-dawn horizon, but it was far too early for businesses — even coffee shops — to be open. Finally, he spotted a porta-potty and yanked at the handle.

Locked.

“I was panicking!” he says. “I didn’t know what to do. Luckily, there was another one right around the corner.”

A crisis narrowly averted.

When Song returned to his running group and shared his story, he found himself in sympathetic company. Nearly every runner confessed to experiencing a similar emergency as often as once a month.

“When I started talking to people to get feedback, everyone immediately became passionate,” Song says. “They all wished an app like this already existed.”

This feedback dovetailed with Song’s experience as a parent — anyone with young children knows the panic of a child needing to go with zero notice and even less bladder control. Song wanted a solution, so he built one.

“Since there were no other mobile apps specifically designed to help runners or families with little kids, I felt I had to create something for them.”

PortaDash launched at the end of 2025 and has already grown to over 100 users through word of mouth alone. Song notes that while the current base is split primarily between runners (roughly 60%) and parents (about 40%), he sees room for further demographics, from contractors and electricians to plumbers and gig workers—people who spend their workdays on the road.

It’s a diverse crowd, but they share a common bond.

Beneath the surface-level silliness and embarrassment that usually surround ‘potty talk,’ the app’s reviews reveal a genuine vulnerability, along with the profound gratitude that comes with remedying this most human necessity. One parent writes of a porta-potty by Mary Munford Elementary School:

“Absolute lifesaver! This porta potty saved the day! I was at the playground with my kids on a Saturday when one of them suddenly had to go. The school was closed and I couldn’t find a restroom anywhere else. I was starting to panic until I spotted this unit. I am so relieved and grateful to whoever installed this here. A total necessity for parents!”

There are many more stories — ranging from wholesome to harrowing — where that came from, Song explains.

“A store owner gracefully allowed a runner to use their bathroom, and that runner brought them flowers after their run as a thank-you. Other times, a person can’t find anything and disaster strikes,” he says. “People may not always want to share them — because they’re embarrassing — but everyone has their own unique stories. There’s a camaraderie in talking about it.”

If you’re curious about what makes for a five-star public bathroom in the city, look no further than the facilities at Libbie Market or the porta-potties at Dogwood Dell. Just don’t ruin them for the rest of us and stink up the joint.

“People care about cleanliness the most,” Song says. “There are five-star reviews not necessarily when it’s in a fancy hotel, but if it smells good, it’s going to be appealing to users.”

On the PortaDash site, users can submit longer-form anecdotes about their bathroom adventures, which Song is eager for people to share. He says he would like to one day create a book of bathroom stories from around the world, bringing people together for a lighthearted laugh at a common real life conundrum. After all — everybody poops.