If you’re eagle-eyed and regularly find yourself stuck at some of Jakarta’s busiest intersections, you may have noticed the familiar Blue Bird taxi company’s logo has been painted into a few of the “yellow box junctions” (YBJ) meant to keep motorists from creeping into the intersection.
A photo of some of these logos in Mampang Prapatan, posted to Twitter by user @kopiganja, recently made the rounds on the social networking site. The attached tweet had some pointed question for Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama and Jakarta’s Transportation Agency.
“Dear @ahok_basukiTP, why is @UPTAJDishubDKI allowed to put ads like this on the road?”
Kompas asked Andri Yansyah, head of the Jakarta Transportation Agency, for an explanation. According to Andri, the government did indeed give Blue Bird the right to decorate the pavement with their logo as part of a corporate social responsibility (CSR) program.
“That’s CSR. We asked for help to make the YBJ, so they were allowed to include (their logo),” Andri told Kompas today.
The head of the Transport Agency said that any company that wanted to contribute to maintaining the capital’s YBJs could also have their logos added to the city’s streets.
We know that the Jakarta Government doesn’t have the largest budget, but are they really in such dire straits that they can’t afford the paint to draw in YBJs themselves? Do they really have to turn the pavement into more advertising space?
It seems like there a lot more effective ways that companies like Blue Bird could give back to the city than by turning YBJs into billboards – too many motorists already ignore the yellow lines to try and get a few extra centimeters of a head start at intersections. They are likely to take them even less seriously when they are emblazoned with company logos.
