Marbourg could often sound like he was taking the traffic personally and, in a way, he was, Dildine said, remarking on the “at-times floundering DOTs responsible for mismanaging the traffic flow.”Īfter the 1998 Wilson Bridge incident, Marbourg was quoted in The Washington Post as saying, “This just gives us a taste of what life will be like if this bridge crumbles,” referring to a yearslong effort to replace the aging bridge. “There’s no one else who could have taken that much havoc and crafted it into something that gave our listeners solace,” Dildine said. He rattled off a series of traffic events going back more than 30 years - the Veterans Day snowstorm of 1987, the Interstate 95 tanker explosion of 2004 and the rush-hour ice storm of 2016. “Anyone who has battled with the region’s traffic jams over the decades has him to thank, because they have his voice on WTOP in their toolkit,” Dildine said. Marbourg, never shy about calling out 'gross incompetence'ĭave Dildine worked alongside Marbourg in the Traffic Center for nearly 10 years and said, “I have a lot to be thankful for, because of everything he’s taught me over the years.” “He was our only source of real news for the people who were stranded that day,” Kelleher said. Marbourg “literally stayed on the air until they cleared it up” after more than six hours. Traffic all across the region was backed up for 20 miles. Several WTOP reporters and editors said Marbourg shined even more on the days when the unexpected happened.ĭigital Editor Colleen Kelleher immediately remembered an incident where a man stood on the Wilson Bridge, threatening to jump off, on a Wednesday afternoon in November 1998. Rush hour is a lot more than two hours in the morning and afternoon nowadays, and that’s just on normal days. “From answering the phone to get listener tips, to his calling out officials doing road work during rush hours, to calling out motorists as ‘self-entitled jackasses’ for driving the wrong way on the shoulder, Bob has made it his mission to make sure everyone in our area made it to work safely and got home for dinner safely.” “Bob has been a commuter’s best friend almost since the Beltway was built,” said Mike McMearty, WTOP’s director of news and programming. That was all there was of rush hour, then!” Bob Marbourg was on WTOP for 40 years. Marbourg got the call from WTOP and “reported from my dining room on a wired landline,” he said.įor the next 10 years, however, he reported on the traffic, undaunted, from another Cessna: “two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon. Marbourg recalled that he got his start at WTOP thanks to a plane crash: WTOP reporter Steve Thompson and pilot Bernard Wicker were in a Cessna that ran out of fuel and landed in a tree in Vienna, Virginia. area, you can breathe easy: Bob Marbourg has left the WTOP Traffic Center.Īfter 40 years, “it is time for me to say goodbye,” the guru of D.C.-area traffic wrote in an email to WTOP staff Wednesday morning. WTOP’s Bob Marbourg (left) and Dave Statter covered traffic during the early ’80s. Business & Finance Click to expand menu.
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