Which Bike Planning Team Will Reign Supreme?

Tomorrow night, Paul White does his best Chairman Kaga.

Tomorrow night’s the main event for the New Amsterdam Bike Slam, the weekend-long extravaganza hosted by Transportation Alternatives and Vélo Mondial. Two teams will face off Iron Chef-style to devise the most effective plan to raise cycling in New York City to Amsterdam-esque levels. I’m not quite sure what to expect, but a planning contest “inspired by poetry slams, reality television competitions, and
celebrity death matches” promises to not be dull.

The teams, each comprised of American and Dutch planners jumbled together, have been roaming the city the past few days, hatching their plans. They’ve been asked to address everything from law enforcement to bike culture in their presentations. The most interesting visuals should appear in the second round of the contest. That’s when the teams will unveil designs for four types of bike infrastructure: a bridge crossing (the Williamsburg Bridge, specifically), a greenway, a neighborhood-scale network of streets, and a large office building (the Municipal Building).

The Bike Slam design battle gets started Saturday at 10 p.m. at Cielo (18 Little West 12th Street, between Ninth Avenue and Washington Street). Tickets are $20, or $10 for TA members. The competition will be followed by dancing until 4 a.m. What I want to know is, who’ll have the stamina to bike 100 miles the next day?