Lisa Baden has been a traffic reporter in Washington for 15 years. She provides road conditions for Westwood One that air on WTOP Radio and WJLA-TV. She describes herself as “one of the few people who gets excited in a backup.”
How did you become a traffic reporter?
When I was growing up I always knew I wanted to be on the radio. I didn’t grow up saying that I wanted to be a traffic reporter, but this is the way it worked out. I was in between jobs and I wanted to stay in the market and I didn’t want to move. Someone said Metro Traffic is hiring and I thought, how terrific! The Beltway is round, how hard could it be? It has turned out to be a secure job because, unfortunately for the commuter but fortunately for me, traffic continues to worsen.
How do you monitor the traffic?
There are 23 scanners in our office and we’ve been trained over time to listen to specific things.
We have three helicopters and one fixed-wing aircraft. We have mobile units driving around looking at the traffic in areas of restricted air space, radioing back the information to base. And we use cameras, and we are answering the phone with the WTOP traffic hotline.
How has the traffic situation changed since you started in the business?
When I first started, it was not 24 hours, it was afternoon and morning only and the times were very abbreviated. Now it has grown to a 24-hour operation. It’s crazy, it doesn’t matter what time it is.
What are the worst areas for traffic?
Virginia hands down. Interstates 95 and 395 pay my mortgage, and Interstate 270 in Maryland. And on the Capital Beltway, that would be the Woodrow Wilson Bridge traffic. Guaranteed those are the three areas that tend to bottleneck.
