[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 5 (Tuesday, January 25, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E64-E65]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      IN TRIBUTE TO WALT STARLING

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. FRANK R. WOLF

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, January 25, 2005

  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I want to bring to the attention of the House 
the recent passing of Walt Starling, who many Members who have been 
serving in the House for a while will remember as the first traffic 
reporter in the Washington metropolitan area who took to the air to 
report on rush hour traffic conditions.
  For over 20 years, twice each workday, Walt circled the Washington 
skies at 1,200 feet in a Cessna plane that he piloted himself to let us 
know where the traffic jams were and how to avoid them. I was one of 
the fortunate ones to ride on a tour around the region. I got the 
bird's eye view, including the highway network in my district located 
just outside the nation's capital in Virginia.
  I also got to know Walt and to rely on his advice on ways to improve 
transportation in our region. Walt and two airborne traffic reporters 
in Washington that he trained--Bob Marbourg and Andy Parks--saw the big 
traffic picture every day from their unique vantage points and gave 
their professional insight at a town meeting I held in the 1980's on 
reducing high occupancy vehicle (HOV) rules on I-66.
  Walt was a caring, dedicated professional who touched the lives of so 
many people. He also was a devoted husband and father. To

[[Page E65]]

his family, we send our deepest condolences and also our thanks for 
their sharing of Walt with us all.
  Mr. Speaker, I submit for the Record two articles from the Washington 
Post of January 5, and January 13, about the life of Walt Starling.

               On-Air Traffic Reporter Walt Starling Dies

                            (By Joe Holley)

       Walt Starling, a flying traffic reporter whose live radio 
     reports of Capital Beltway jams, fender benders and 
     bottlenecks helped Washington area commuters get to work 
     every morning and home every night, died Jan. 4 of colon 
     cancer at his home in Laytonsville. He was 52.
       Mr. Starling was one of the first traffic reporters in the 
     area to become a radio personality. From 1974 until 1995, he 
     folded his 6-foot-4 frame into the cramped cockpit of a 
     Cessna 172 and circled the Beltway at 1,200 feet, looking for 
     ways to keep traffic flowing and commuter frustrations to a 
     minimum, tasks that grew increasingly difficult as the 
     population boomed and traffic increased. He reported traffic 
     twice a day for a succession of area stations, flying an 
     estimated 2.2 million air miles.
       In recent years, he had been working for WRC-TV (Channel 4) 
     in the District.
       Mr. Starling's career as an air-traffic radio reporter 
     began as a class project at the University of Maryland in 
     1973. As he explained to The Washington Post in 1994, he was 
     a senior in the radio and television program, and his 
     assignment was to create a job for himself. He was taking 
     flying lessons at the time and came up with the idea of using 
     a fixed-wing plane to monitor traffic and provide regular 
     radio reports. Fuel, maintenance and insurance would be less 
     expensive than for a helicopter, and a plane would be safer, 
     he maintained.
       The instructor, also a pilot, was not convinced. ``That's 
     about the dumbest thing I've ever read,'' he told Mr. 
     Starling.
       Undaunted, Mr. Starling dropped out of school and pitched 
     the idea to WAVA (105.1 FM). The station agreed to give it a 
     try, and on March 4, 1974, he began delivering 10 reports 
     during morning drive time and 10 during the afternoon rush. 
     In the early days of his venture, he was allowed to sell his 
     own sponsorships, so he traded commercial spots for, among 
     other things, eyeglasses, meals, cars and carpeting for his 
     home.
       Mr. Starling was one of the few traffic reporters in the 
     country who both flew the plane and did the reporting, dual 
     duties that made insurance companies anxious. Circling above 
     the snaking lines of traffic, he managed to work the controls 
     of his plane, spot where the traffic was snarled and then 
     deliver up-to-the-minute information in smooth one-minute 
     reports.
       He had only two emergency landings during his career, but 
     he knew the location of every swath of green in the area, 
     just in case.
       His voice had a calming effect on often-harried commuters. 
     At sunset during the winter, he would gently remind drivers 
     to switch on their headlights, and he knew the area so well 
     he could offer alternatives to drivers coming up on 
     bottlenecks. He also trained other traffic reporters, 
     including Andy Parks of WMAL (630 AM) and Bob Marbourg of 
     WTOP (1500 AM).
       Walter Maurice Starling was born in Washington and grew up 
     in Hyattsville, down the street and around the corner from 
     College Park Airport, where the Wright brothers trained the 
     nation's first military pilots. His father, Walter M. 
     Starling, a businessman who died last month, earned his 
     private pilot's license in 1947 and took his son up for the 
     first time in 1956, when he was 4. (Mr. Starling's sister and 
     son also are pilots.)
       He graduated from Northwestern High School in Hyattsville 
     in 1970. At U-Md. in the early 1970s, he reported for WMUC 
     (88.1 FM), the campus radio and TV station, but dropped out 
     of school to begin his ``Washington Skywatch.'' He received 
     his undergraduate degree in 1981. Over the years, he reported 
     for WAVA-AM and FM News Radio, WASH (97.1 FM), WPGC (95.5 FM) 
     and WLIT/WARW-FM.
       His heyday, recalled David Burd of WMAL-AM, was at WASH-FM 
     in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The station was tops in 
     the market, and Mr. Starling's reports were a popular 
     feature.
       In the early 1990s, as stations increasingly turned to 
     traffic reporting services that offer reports to several 
     stations at the same time, the economics of the individual 
     reporter turned against Mr. Starling. After leaving WARW-FM 
     in 1995, he went to work for WRC-TV, where he began learning 
     the medium of television from the ground up. He was an 
     assignment editor for the station before becoming ill in 
     early 2004.
       Mr. Starling was an active member of First United Methodist 
     Church in Hyattsville. He also flew as a barnstorming pilot 
     for Flying Circus Airshows and restored vintage planes.
       Survivors include his wife of 29 years, Sharon Lynn 
     Starling of Laytonsville; two children, W. Brent Starling of 
     Laytonsville and Joanna Lynn Starling of Rockville; his 
     mother, Doris Starling of Silver Spring; a sister, Phyllis 
     Starling of Rockville; and two grandchildren.
                                  ____


                 Blazing a Trail for Traffic Reporters

                          (By Steven Ginsberg)

       There Bob Marbourg was, before anyone knew who Bob Marbourg 
     was, looking for a twirl over the Washington region with Walt 
     Starling, the premier flying traffic reporter of the late 
     1970s.
       ``I know you take folks along for a ride with you. I wonder 
     if I might do that with you sometime,'' Marbourg recalled 
     asking Starling at a street fair in College Park.
       Sure, Starling said. Before long, Marbourg was by 
     Starling's side in his signature Cessna 172. Marbourg took 
     some pictures that Starling liked, and Marbourg was asked to 
     come back again. And again and again. One Memorial Day 
     weekend, Starling suggested to his station manager that 
     Marbourg fill in while he was away and, poof, a radio traffic 
     reporter's career was born.
       That was the kind of guy Starling was, Marbourg said last 
     week, days after the legend died Jan. 4 at 52 of colon 
     cancer.
       ``Walt Starling was a radio personality,'' Marbourg said, 
     between his broadcasts at WTOP (1500 AM), a job that Starling 
     helped him get. ``But he was also a man who touched many 
     people in many generous and caring ways.''
       Starling was a pioneer in the world of traffic reports and 
     traffic reporters. He was one of the first in the area to 
     become a radio personality, jabbering with his studio 
     counterparts during live reports. Starling also flew in his 
     own way, in a fixed-wing plane when everyone else was 
     circling in helicopters.
       Starling's fixed-wing idea is now legendary. He dreamed it 
     up for a student project, figuring that a plane would be less 
     expensive to operate than a helicopter. A teacher at the 
     University of Maryland told him the idea was ``about the 
     dumbest thing I've ever read,'' Starling told The Washington 
     Post in 1994.
       Starling would later say that was just the kind of comment 
     that would get him started. He quit school, refined the idea 
     a little and sold it to WAVA (105.1 FM). On March 4, 1974, he 
     flew the first of an estimated 2.2 million air miles.
       After WAVA, Starling worked for FM News Radio, WASH (97.1 
     FM), WPGC (95.5 FM) and WLIT/WARW-FM before hopping over to 
     television at WRC-TV (Channel 4) in the District in the mid-
     1990s. Starling served as an assignment editor for the 
     station before becoming ill last year.
       Aside from the type of craft he used, Starling did 
     something else that most other traffic reporters didn't do: 
     He piloted his plane. At least that's what he did when he 
     hadn't turned over the controls to Marbourg so that Starling 
     could check one of his trusty maps.
       ``We were out over Rock Creek Park, just over Walter Reed 
     one day,'' Marbourg said, ``and we were flying in a circle 
     while he was trying to find an address. Walter looked up 
     from his map book and all he could see were trees.''
       ``Bob, where have you taken us?'' Starling asked, 
     incredulously, before resuming control.
       Lon Anderson, a spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic who knew 
     Starling's voice as a Washington area resident and knew his 
     professionalism later when they worked together on projects, 
     said that Starling paved the way for all the local radio 
     traffic reporters who followed.
       ``He was then what Bob Marbourg really is now, the dean of 
     traffic reporters,'' Anderson said. ``He sounded just as 
     professional and knowledgeable and no different'' from 
     today's traffic reporters. ``The difference was he was there 
     ahead of everybody doing this, and everyone followed him. He 
     clearly set the tenor to a large extent that is followed 
     today.''
       Bruce Allen, the midday news anchor at WTOP, met Starling 
     when he was working as a traffic reporter in 1980. Allen, who 
     worked for Metro Traffic, said the company was contractually 
     obligated to give Starling all the traffic information it 
     had. Starling was under no such obligation but passed along 
     what he knew anyway.
       ``It was the personal relationship that made it a two-way 
     flow,'' Allen said. ``I'm one of the zillions who liked the 
     guy and felt good about him. He was a good man.''

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