WASHINGTON — Washington’s news, traffic, and weather authority, WTOP and wtop.com, today announced the addition of hourly weekend Metro updates to serve area rail users and visitors.
The updates, which will include information on track work and delays for Metro, MARC, VRE and Amtrak, will air at four minutes past every hour weekends from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. This is in addition to breaking transit information offered around the clock on WTOP as part of “traffic every ten minutes on the 8’s.”
“Weekends are a busy time for our listeners who use mass transit, and ironically, that’s when the bulk of the track work takes place,” says WTOP Traffic Director Jim Battagliese. “Our goal is to inform people with real-time rail updates as they’re making weekend travel plans.”
Metro is the second busiest transit system in the U.S., behind New York’s subway system, averaging more than 700 thousand riders a day, and more than half a million weekend riders WTOP Program Director Laurie Cantillo says, “Metro riders deserve the same real-time information that D.C. area commuters have grown to depend on from the WTOP Traffic Center. This is the next step in our evolution as the region’s traffic and transit information leader.”
Rail riders can access minute-by-minute information by listening to 103.5 FM, by signing up for special text and email alerts on WTOP.com, and by following @WTOPtraffic on Twitter.
About WTOP WTOP Radio has served the Washington region since 1926 and has been Washington’s all-news radio station since 1969. WTOP is the most widely listened-to radio station in the nation’s capital. WTOP can be heard on 103.5 FM in the metro, 103.9 FM in Frederick, 107.7 FM to the South and West and worldwide at wtop.com. WTOP and its sister station Federal News Radio are owned and operated by Hubbard Radio, LLC.
# # # Contact: Laurie Cantillo lcantillo@wtop.com
