"Amsterdam is dirty, foul and crowded": Rijksmuseum head

"Amsterdam is getting dirty, foul and overcrowded,” Wim Pijbes, General Director of Rijks Museum has said.

In a piece published in NRC.next this morning Pijbes refers to the city’s charm is “paling” and urged the city council to rapidly make Amsterdam lovable again for its visitors and liveable for its residents.

He said the city can barely handle the increasing flow of tourists and single day visitors anymore. With the reopening of Rijks Museum Amsterdam is experiencing for the first time what it really means to be an attractive city for local visitors and visitors from abroad. “But it is important that we’re able to handle the expansive flow of visitors in a fitting way,” he said.

The first steps toward a fitting way have been done, but Pijbes urged for more. “Anybody who visits Amsterdam can see that the city has reached its growth limits. The garbage, the irritation, the long queues. It is time for a Delta Plan for Touristic Amsterdam,” he wrote.

He made some suggestions, like seeing to it that measures announced in April against “nasty” street vending and wandering garbage are implemented, and a structure for the “perilous” and illegal short-stay room rent. The functioning of taxis needs attention, a new approach for the canal-cruise industry needs to be found, it is time the bicycle parking is “finally” built and there needs to come an end to medieval way household waste is handled in the inner city and around the Museum Square.

Pijbes stressed that Amsterdam is a “fantastic city” and the business card of the Netherlands, but said that it is also time the city welcomes its guest from all over the world in a proper manner. “For a very long time that the tadaa of Amsterdam’s coolness was considered charming and unrestrained. (But) that charm has paled off. ‘I Amsterdam” has become “Me first and then the city”.