The Land Transport Authority (LTA) has unveiled stiffer fines for those caught repeatedly sticking illegal advertisements on places like bus stops, pillars of sheltered walkways and street lamp posts.
“From June 2015, fines for repeat offenders caught putting up illegal advertisements on road infrastructure will be increased from $300 to $500,” said LTA.
Dr Chin Kian Keong, Group Director for Transportation and Road Operations at LTA, noted that “illegal advertisements on our street infrastructure have been a sticky issue, as it is both unsightly, and requires additional manpower and resources to remove.”
To address this issue, a series of innovative measures were introduced.
It began using anti-stick paint on street infrastructure near major road junctions and major transport nodes in 2010, which resulted in fewer illegal advertisements.
The paint’s unique properties make it difficult to paste advertisements and reduces the cost and time needed to remove the paper and glue.
LTA revealed that it has so far coated over 16,900 street lamp posts and road-related facilities at around 600 locations across the island. It will continue to monitor if there is a need to extend the use of anti-stick paint to more areas.
In 2011, LTA also introduced low cost advertisement boards near selected MRT stations which were seeing high pedestrian traffic in order to discourage illegal advertisements.
To date, 52 advertisement boards have been installed at 45 locations with high pedestrian traffic. LTA said it will continue to monitor if it should extend the initiative to other locations.
Photo: Bus stop along Eu Tong Sen Street. (Source: LTA website)
Romesh Navaratnarajah, Singapore Editor at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact him about this or other stories email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
