(Photo by Zach Brooks)
Quick, name something good. Pizza! Now name something bad. America's over-reliance on cars! Is it at all possible to combine those things? The answer is yes! This Saturday, July 30th, the people at Transportation Alternatives are challenging you make it to all five boroughs to eat some pizza without the use of a car, on the 5 Boro Pizza Challenge.
The challenge is simple enough: you pay a $25 entrance fee (that goes to benefit the fine folks at Transportation Alternatives and also gets you a t-shirt), then gather with like-minded pizza freaks at Washington Square Park at 11 a.m. on Saturday. You'll be given a list of one pizza place in every borough that serves slices, and from there, you'll have to make your way to each place without the use of a car (no Uber, Lyft or cabs allowed), throw a picture of yourself eating the slice up on Instagram with the hashtag #5boropizzachallenge. Quickest person/team to eat all the slices and make it back to the Greenwich Village afterparty is the official 5 Boro Pizza Champion. Sadly, you don't get a WWE-style belt to celebrate your accomplishment.
The important thing you remember is that you can only use mass transportation, bikes or your own two feet to get around. It's also impossible to strategize how you'll get everywhere right now, because the list isn't revealed until Saturday. If I were to be doing this though, suggestion #1 would be to start with Staten Island, so you can get the ferry out of the way. Suggestion #2 would be to rely on a bike, both because eating all the pizza is gonna pack some calories into your body, and because there's never not some kind of weekend track work happening.
