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Sec. Foxx Braves the Rain for Bike to Work Day

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.
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Photo: Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments

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.

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Photo: MWCOG

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.

Photo of Tanya Snyder
Tanya became Streetsblog's Capitol Hill editor in September 2010 after covering Congress for Pacifica Radio’s Washington bureau and for public radio stations around the country. She lives car-free in a transit-oriented and bike-friendly neighborhood of Washington, DC.

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