Leading by Example: A BMW for each alderman

This "Leading by example" report is the second in what we hope will be a long series on how mayors and other of our elected representatives around the world are showing the way by their actions.

Amsterdam is the only municipality in the Netherlands where each administrator disposes of their own official car, Binnenlands Bestuur reports.

By contrast, the Leiden administration has no official cars at all: mayor and aldermen travel by bicycle, taxi or train.

Amsterdam has the largest car fleet of all 50 municipalities polled by Binnenlands Bestuur: 7 BMW’s for 7 administrators. By comparison, Rotterdam has 5 cars for its administrators; The Hague has 4 and Utrecht 3, whereas the latter three cities each have 8 administrators. Amsterdam’s brand new BMW’s do have a ‘B label’, which means they are relatively energy-efficient.

According to calculations by Binnenlands Bestuur, maintaining an official car fleet can be up to 4 times as expensive as Leiden’s combination of bicycle, taxi and train.

Image: Mayor Job Cohen of Amsterdam riding a bicycle in front of city hall. So it´s about more than BMWs in Amsterdam too. (Let´s keep our eye on those Dutch.)
Photo: Edwin van Eis

Source: http://www.nieuwsuitamsterdam.nl/en/2009/10/bmw-each-alderman