Faced with a request to build a restroom along Route 9 between Brewer and Calais, where there are few facilities during the drive, the Maine Department of Transportation said it can’t do this because such a facility would cost $625,000 and require $100,000 in annual maintenance and staffing. The request was for a bathroom, not a mansion. Maybe it would be cheaper for the department to build a modest house, at a cost of about $100,000, then tear down everything but the bathrooms.

While the request, officially LD 561 from Sen. Kevin Raye, R-Perry, elicited a lot of laughter during a public hearing this week, it is no laughing matter.

It is 90 miles from Brewer to Calais with long stretches with no commercial establishments and, therefore, no bathrooms. It is also a route heavily used by tourists heading to and from Canada through Calais, the seventh-busiest border crossing in the country. Maybe there should be a sign in Brewer: Go now or hold on until you reach the border.

The Department of Transportation has a point that a crude facility that is not monitored and maintained is worse than no facility at all, but it should work with lawmakers to find a solution, not come up with outrageous costs.

The DOT said it would cost about $625,000 to build new restrooms based on the cost of such facilities to be built at the Penobscot Narrows Bridge. Lawmakers should ask why the department is spending $625,000 on new restrooms at the bridge, especially when there are already state facilities at nearby Fort Knox.

The ongoing cost is a serious issue, although $100,000 a year to provide round-the-clock staffing seems like overkill. The transportation department has closed about two dozen bathroom facilities across the state primarily because of vandalism. Even with DOT employees checking some facilities twice a day, the restrooms were covered with graffiti and excrement and became dumping grounds for household garbage and sewage from motor homes.

For a 2002 study on rest areas for the New England Transportation Consortium, University of Maine engineering Professor Per Garder found that going to the bathroom was the most common reason for stopping and cleanliness was a top priority. Clean facilities that also provide information about local attractions can also be a boost to tourism.

A large parking area in Township 30, about halfway between Brewer and Calais, looks like a rest area waiting for a bathroom building. The state should finish the work by installing low-cost bathrooms and paying someone, perhaps even someone who lives nearby, to keep an eye on them. It could use the rest of the $625,000 to work on the roads.