In 2040, Malioboro street is a nation-wide success story in the wicked fight against tobacco. It is an eco-friendly, vibrant public space created through its socially diverse landscape of music, art and bicycle initiatives. The entire area is a complete smoke free zone as well as motor free zone thanks to the campaign #SuaraTanpaRokok and #TransportasiTanpaBensin.
The campaign’s highly recognised, interactive mural of coloured and personalised stickers has reached an audience of 20,000 people who have contributed either messages of encouragement or personal achievement through their commitment to give up smoking completely.
Under Vital Strategie’s #TransportasiTanpaBensin movement and their collaboration with Jogja Bikes, the street is covered with 280 bicycles with 40 of these being eco-friendly Spedagi Bamboo Bikes. In 5 years’ time, Spedagi Bamboo Bikes will replace the standard metal frames as a means of promoting and contributing to sustainable future.
Due to the popularity of smoke free bicycle riding, an all inclusive bicycle subculture has emerged with equal number of female and male riders, who take advantage of the #WatchJogjaBikes movement every Sunday to improve and beat their timed ventures from the previous week. For those who love a more leisurely and sight-seeing experience, there are currently three designated bike tours fit for both locals and tourists.
Annually, Indonesians eagerly anticipate the national Malioboro Sprint event, which is made up of 240 elite men and women from across the country and is broadcasted internationally to a large viewing audience. It is a charitable event, with all proceeds funding anti-smoking initiatives such as Vital Strategies and MTCC to further their clinical research. This year’s aim is 500 million rp, after raising 430 million rp last year.
The district of Malioboro hopes to be an example of what the rest of Yogyakarta could be as well as inspire a whole Indonesian culture that prevents the existence of the smoking epidemic.
In the context of 2019, Malioboro St has a proposed non-smoking law under the Governments Decree No.2, beginning in 2017, with 4 proposed smoking areas along the street. Visiting Malioboro St in 2019, there are visually no signs or clear directions for smokers to group in segmented areas across Malioboro, or are any authoritative enforcing the decree. Men dominate the communal population at night time, often seen socially smoking along Malioboro St, around children, at restaurants and at stalls. Young groups of teenage boys are seen hanging out with little to do, smoking and chatting as their predecessors did. Women are scarce in this environment, and teenage girls are virtually extinct. During the day the side walk isn’t as busy as night, however more women are noticeable at this time. Second hand smoke is a huge issue. Street vendors sell cigarettes with ease of access at cheap prices and seem un-phased by the buyers age.
In 2020, the launch of Malioboro St campaign #TransportasiTanpaBensi , translated to ‘Transportation Without Fuel’, and Vital Strategies already popular 2015 hashtag #SuaraTanpaRokok, (Voices Without Cigarettes) are implemented through public engagement in social media, activating the beginning of a street art movement that will engulf Malioboro. ‘#VoicesWithoutCigarettes’ is implemented as a public art hashtag for individuals to engage in both conversationally and through social media. Car free Sunday has been implemented as a pollution prevention scheme under the umbrella of ‘Transportation Without Fuel’ program, allowing community members to engage in casual bike riding and walking as a form of physical exercise.
In 2021, partnership with existing Malioboro St share bikes ‘Jogja Bikes’ is implemented with a small but powerful rebranding of the bikes with an inclusion of a new ‘Smoke Free Jogja Bikes’ logo, and both #TransportationWithoutFuel and #VoicesWithoutCigarettes printed on either side of the bike to reinforce the health-conscious message. The launch of ‘Watch Jogja Bike’ Sunday event will coincide with Car Free Sunday as an all-inclusive fitness event where participants will scan their personalised barcode through the existing ‘inabike’ app to enter, and then cycle there chosen 2K, 5K, 10K so on… track set up via digital GPS. Each Race is time scored so individuals compete with themselves to improve their fitness at their own pace, making it easier for individuals to become involved in more social aspects. A street mural has been started under there #VoicesWithoutCigarettes campaign, beginning on the corner of a laneway where a lot of Jogja’s street art thrives. Individuals will be given a blank coloured sticker with space to write something encouraging or personal about their journey towards quitting smoking, making their own mark on the landscape. Local artists will be employed on one Wage Tuesday to reinvent the vibrancy of Malioboro St, turning ash tray bins into plant boxes with no smoking signs, while also adding their own artwork to the outside. The unused Jogja Bikes information panels will be turned into motivational messages for healthy living without smoking, for example, “After 2-12 weeks of no smoking, your blood circulation and lung function begin to improve. More stamina to ride your bike!”
In 2022, due to the popularity and success of Vital Strategies ‘Watch Jogja Bike’ weekly event, Malioboro has seen a significant increase in the amount of ‘Smoke Free Jogja Bikes’ and personal bikes used weekly, with its bike subculture growing in scale. The yearly charitable event ‘Malioboro Sprint’ has begun as a way of creating national attention towards both #VoicesWithoutCigarettes and #TransportationWithoutFuel movement. The event will begin as a local competition, engaging equal percentage of both women, girls, men and boys in a more elitist performance focus, making for a great viewing experience. Entrants will race in their specified category in groups of 4 and will be time ranked until the final race, building the anticipation for the crowd to stay around all day to watch the event. Through the competitor’s fee, sponsorships and public donations, money will be raised for smoke free organisations such as the MTCC. With the popular increase in Sunday’s ‘Watch Jogja Bike’ event, volunteers from organisations such as Kota Kita (an Indonesian grass roots organisation that promotes informed and empowered citizens) will be present under there ‘Women On Wheels’ project, encouraging empowerment for women and girls to fully and equally participate in socioeconomic attainment, while promoting the values of a sustainable smoke free and liveable city. Volunteers from Jogja Bikes will also be present running mental health talks, encouraging positivity and understanding in an age where mental health is apparent.
In 2025, Jogja Bikes has implemented a further 50% increase in bikes available along Malioboro St and has increased access to pick up points by 20%. Jogja Bikes has now implemented a self-guided bike tour, with signage around the city to help guide both the tour. Due to the popular communal acceptance of both #VoicesWithoutCigarettes and #TransportationWithoutFuel schemes, Malioboro has now become a completely smoke free zone.
In 2030, the self-guided bicycle tour has now added an extra 2 routes for locals and tourists to engage with. The ‘Voices Without Cigarettes’ public mural has been a massive success, covering a 3rd of one side of Malioboro St. The yearly ‘Malioboro Sprint’ event has increased dramatically in participant engagement and has seen a total donation of 150million rp due to its national broadcast. Statistics gathered from #VoicesWithoutCigarette sign up forms reveal that 60% of participants have completely quit smoking, with others having reduced their smoking intake.
In 2035, the ‘Malioboro Sprint’ event has is now internationally broadcasted, hence raising 300million rp for smoke free organisations. The weekly ‘Watch Jogja Bike’ event has become a huge success within the city of Yogyakarta, engaging community from families to elite athletes in equal numbers women and men.
Lack of public acceptance towards the campaign will result in loss of much needed funding for Vital Strategies and MTCC, as well as reduced public health awareness that will further promote the social acceptance and advocacy of tobacco smoking. This will increase the already high 68% of male smokers to 80% and will break into the female market with invasive advertisement schemes. This will allow tobacco companies to further take advantage of the young impressionable minds that they already advertise towards. Due to the increase in social acceptance, the government will surpass the existing $62.2 billion Aus. spent annually on medical resources that fight the crisis, projecting to be $80 billion Aus. by 2030. This is 5.5 times the amount earned annually from the tobacco industry, pushing the government into high risk of economic failure and collapse. To fight this projected threat, the government needs to implement a public hashtag, mural and street art scheme with involvement from local Javanese artists to create communal, regional and national conversation around the tobacco epidemic. This will implement efficiently due to Malioboro’s already high occupancy of local and international groups. Currently, smoking for men in Indonesia is considered acceptable on a sociable and cultural scale. If we were to implement and enforce the smoke free zones along Malioboro Street now, communal backlash would occur towards government and health organisations which would deeply impact the implementation of a smoke free Malioboro, and decrease the efficiency at which our #WatchJogjaBike and ‘Malioboro Sprint’ events would be accepted by local Javanese people.
With the implication of engaging health activities, the future of Malioboro is one full of colour and community that we hope everyone will be able to experience.
Indonesia Global Design Studio 