A British show called Top Gear (its car centric, but it still loves to poke fun at itself) has done a similar thing in London. They had a bike, a boat, a car and a public transportation rider "race" across London to a municipal airport during the afternoon commute. The bike won, then the public transport rider, boat and car last.

They've also raced a marathon course against a pretty fast runner in London - the runner won.... and a parcours runner across a different city (maybe Birmingham... can't remember) and of course the runner again won. Most any time it means dealing with rush hour traffic the car will lose and usually lose bad. Other things they've done - motorized kayaker vs all terrain rally car, Ferry boat vs driving from England to Norway, Bullet train vs driving in Japan. A dog in a drag race against two Soviet era cars... (the dog nearly won ). The car rarely wins in their "races". Sometimes it real, sometimes it looks pretty set up - but all very funny.