It's Bike to Work Day, and despite pouring rain, U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx came out to the Washington Area Bicyclists Association event in Freedom Plaza, getting soaked in shorts and a baseball cap.
No disrespect to Ray LaHood, who did more for cycling than any Secretary of Transportation ever had, but he never showed up to DC's venerable Bike to Work Day event along the celebrated Pennsylvania Avenue bike lanes. His deputies did, but LaHood himself never made it.
While current staff members of both WABA and U.S. DOT speculated that Foxx may have been the first U.S. Transportation Secretary ever to make it to the annual event, former staff recall that Mary Peters attended, and perhaps Rodney Slater and Norman Mineta as well.
But did those other secretaries show up in the rain? Event organizers insisted that Foxx could take a pass today because of the weather (and the associated low turnout) but he was adamant about being there.