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$4.37 here. It went up 10 cents more on Monday.
I seldom go anywhere except to work (13 miles one way) and church (about 2 miles). I carpool with a coworker 3 days a week and try to run my personal errands on my way home on the days I'm by myself.
Posts: 2069 | Registered: May 2001
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I saw $3.85 yesterday (from the window of the bus...), and I think the Minnesota prices are lower than average.
Posts: 957 | Registered: Aug 2002
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Today, for the first time ever, I paid more for a gallon of fuel than I did for milk. ($3.86 for milk)
Posts: 369 | Registered: Apr 2007
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Paying $3.73 in Southern Washington, across the border from Portland, but that's at Costco- probably the cheapest gas in town. (I swear gas alone is paying for the cost of my membership this year!)
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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I was thinking the other day that while it's still cheaper for me to drive to and from work than take the bus, prices are getting high enough that I must be getting close to parity there. Just crunched a few numbers and it looks like I was wrong there; with my current car at its current mileage (which isn't even that good), and bus fares at their current prices, gas would have to be around $5.55 before it would cost me as much to drive as to bus.
I still try to bus at least a few days a week though, just to Do the Right Thing. And I'm sure I'll be doing it more come winter, since I only have street parking and it frequently gets cold enough that my car won't start.
Posts: 957 | Registered: Aug 2002
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I noticed as I was coming in this morning that gas is up another 10 cents overnight at one station in Kahului... I'm sure all the rest will follow before the end of the day. Last Friday, I took a picture with my cell phone of a station that had regular at $4.27, and today it's $4.47.
Still cheaper than milk here though.
Stray, where do you live that bus fares are that high? There is a bus service here on Maui that is growing rapidly. It's still not efficient enough from where I live. I'd have to catch a bus about 3 blocks from my house at 6:30am, which would get me to my transfer point at 7:30. Then I'd have to wait until 8:00 and get to work at 8:42. My work day starts at 7:45. The service is growing pretty rapidly, so maybe soon it will be possible for me. I'd love to have that time to knit or read instead of drive.
Fare is $1 one way or $20 for a monthly pass.
Posts: 2069 | Registered: May 2001
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The dramatic change from state to state on that map has to be because of state gas taxes. I was wondering before why it was so drastic just across state lines. Look at the UP in Michigan and across the border in Wisconsin, it's crazy.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I live in Minneapolis. The fares are $2 one way during rush hours, which is when I use them. If I can drag my sorry ass outta bed early enough (which is the real problem), I can catch a bus 2 blocks from my place at 7:40, switch buses downtown with about a 10-minute wait between, and be at my desk at work at about 8:15. Not too bad time-wise, but if I miss that 7:40 bus I miss the special rush-hour express route that goes right by my building and have to take a different one, which drops me farther away and takes considerably longer.
The route I drive between work and home is 7.2 miles according to Google Maps, and by my calculations burns about .7 gallons of gas for the round trip. So yeah, gas would have to cost a lot more before the bus became cheaper, but I try to do it anyway at least some of the time.
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When you are comparing the price of driving vs. the price of riding the bus, are you including wear and tear on the car or just gas?
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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Taking public transportation to work costs about $8 a day. It is many good things, but it is definitely not cheap.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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3.919 in Western Maine. That gas buddy page is nice. Whenever I'm taking a trip out of state, I always try to plan things so I can fill up in New Hampshire. Posts: 324 | Registered: Mar 2008
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: Taking public transportation to work costs about $8 a day. It is many good things, but it is definitely not cheap.
Wow, that's about double what I'm used to.
I keep thinking that if the politicos really wanted to do something to help poorer people who are being hit hard by rising gas prices, they should make "fare holiday" for public transit. That's even been proposed in some state legislatures with minimal success. It seems free public transit isn't as great a campaign slogan as lower taxes.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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When you are comparing the price of driving vs. the price of riding the bus, are you including the value of your time?
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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The Central Maui bus route (a loop through Kahului & Wailuku, the two main towns) is free. It's $1 each way for all of the spur lines out to the more remote areas. You can ride a from Pukalani in upcountry all the way to Kahana on the west side for $1. It takes just about an hour and a half on the express routes (once a day morning and evening). It would take about 45 minutes to an hour to drive it on your own.
Posts: 2069 | Registered: May 2001
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Not my normal station, but I spotted gas at 4.19 for regular in my town. And I do have to fill up, so I'm hoping I can find something under 4 bucks.
Edit to add: My normal station is at 4.09. But I found a Shell at 3.99 and filled up there.
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Gas here was over $6 a gallon at least a half year ago. Not sure what it's at now, but it has increased dramatically since then.
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Not so bad for my husband's econobox. Scary-ish for Sherman the Suburban. The kids and I have been walking everywhere lately; thank heavens for double jogging strollers.
Posts: 575 | Registered: Jan 2004
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My husband and I have been trying very hard to figure out some way to cut our driving needs. Buses are just not a solution (my city doesn't have buses and by the time I get to a bus, I would be almost at work anyway). We have erratic schedules, so carpooling is hard (two students raising a baby without any family around to help means we majorly take advantage of the flexibility of our jobs). It is very frustrating because gas is hurting our budget pretty badly. I drive a Corolla, so pretty good gas mileage and my husband has a smaller car too (but older so not as good). We do things to try to improve our mileage when we drive (not speed), but we really need to just drive less at this point.
Posts: 2223 | Registered: Mar 2008
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quote:Originally posted by scholarette: My husband and I have been trying very hard to figure out some way to cut our driving needs.
Have you considered bicycling? What about an electric scooter (min only cost aroun $800)?
How far is your commute? Is it feasible to move closer to where you work and go to school.
It is about 12 miles in Houston so very hot and the roads don't have bike lanes. We have a house and hopefully I will graduate in a year, so moving isn't the best idea right now. I am a little scared of driving without the protection of a care around me (perhaps cause my uncle died in a motorcycle accident). But that is an idea to look into.
Posts: 2223 | Registered: Mar 2008
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Scholarette, according to my loose calculations the cost of a gas scooter ($800) would pay for itself in 6 months just through gas savings alone, if you replaced the commute consistently with the scooter, only on that one trip, just once a day, 5 days a week. If you drive, say, 50 miles a day, the scooter would be payed for in 3 months with savings. And you wouldn't be burning gas– scooters make 90mpg, or they come in electric which is even more efficient.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Costco here is now up to $3.83, but most places are either past the $4.00 mark or hovering *just* below.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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I just paid $3.85 in Winston Salem. After I received $50 worth of gas, the pump cut me off. As I was trying to figure out why, I saw a notice posted that said debit cards could only receive $50 worth of gas per purchase. If I used a credit card, I could get up to $75. The sign noted that this was per the card holders requests.
What in the world is that about?
Posts: 3771 | Registered: Sep 2002
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quote:And you wouldn't be burning gas– scooters make 90mpg,
Well, you'd be burning relatively little gas. And depending on the scooter, they can get up to 120 mpg. My old Honda Express used to get 120. But it only went 28 mph. Which makes it a lot safer than a motorcycle, although it also limits what roads you can ride on.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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We paid $3.59 the other day in Tucson. I need to get gas again this afternoon so we'll see what it is now. We have really cut back on our driving now that the kids are out of school.
Posts: 1132 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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It went down 5 cents yesterday. Only $4.04 now.
Other than driving to work, I haven't been driving anywhere really. I walk a lot more now, when I go out at all.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Tammy, that's been an issue with older pumps for a while (since monster SUVs were causing their owners to hit the limit). It had to do with assumptions in the software built into the devices... Probably originally worried about people filling up multiple cars on a stolen card or somesuch.
Many pumps have been upgraded, I think. I wouldn't know, since I haven't hit the limit yet.
quote:Originally posted by Sterling: Costco here is now up to $3.83, but most places are either past the $4.00 mark or hovering *just* below.
Yeah, it's ~$3.95 here with some up to $4.10. I'm afraid after they go past $4.00 prices'll balloon even quicker.
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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I just returned from a trip to the mainland where I went on a roadtrip from Idaho to Missouri and back. I watched gas prices all along the way. The least expensive was in Independence, MO at $3.77 and the most expensive was a little stop in the middle-of-nowhere WY at $4.17. When I left Maui on June 6, gas was at $4.54. It's now at $4.63.
I'm actually relieved it's not higher after seeing what gas is going for on the mainland.
Posts: 2069 | Registered: May 2001
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Costco's now at $4.17 for regular unleaded. I think you'd be lucky to find diesel at the price quoted as average nationwide in aspectre's article ($4.067) anywhere in Washington; most places I've seen it's at least .50 above that.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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We've been steadily at $3.99 for the last few days.
More and more lately, places have renovated their big signs to offer a cheaper price if you pay cash than if you use a credit card. They're trying to cut down on fees. Now you'll see a lot of $4.04 Credit/$3.99 cash, or even steeper discounts.
I was listening to a story on NPR the other day where they interviewed a gas station owner. Between the cost and sale of gas, he made like $1,300 a month off of gas sales, but then had $400 in credit card fees to pay, and $1,100 in some sort of rent or franchise fee. Another month he just barely turned a profit. All their money comes from the sales of the junk in the convenience store part of the gas station, but less and less people are actually going inside to buy those goodies because prices are so high.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I read Aspectre's article in my morning paper, before jumping on my bike to go to work. The cost of the Reno Gazette in Hawthorne has gone up because of the price of gas to bring it to town. (It has no immediate effect, however, because the paper lady has neglected to bill me for over a year now.) Gas today at Scotties was 4.49. It has been stable for a couple of weeks.
Posts: 1167 | Registered: Oct 2005
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There's some hope that it might stablize and then drop off a bit as the year goes on. Though many are still predicting $170 a barrel gas, there's a lot of indicators that would seem to make that assumption puzzling. The United States is the world's biggest consumer of gas, and our demand for the first time in like 30 years as actually dropped recently. We're driving, as a nation, billions fewer miles. And as every year, adding refinery capacity continues, most thankfully for us here in Detroit in the form of a billion dollar addition to a local marathon refinery.
China announced that they are slashing a key subsidy that they use to keep the price artificially low there. Car companies across the board are announcing plans to get rid of large trucks and SUVs, getting ready for the long haul by greatly increasing production of smaller more fuel efficienct cars.
By all accounts, we're responding to the uptick in price exactly as an economy textbook would suggest, and yet the price keeps surging upwards. More and more I think that has to do with rampant overspeculation. We're getting away from supply and demand and into too many people trying to cash in by buying up the stocks and pushing the price artificially high, and there's little any one government or organization can do to stop them.
Saudi Arabia announced they'll produce I think an extra 500,000 barrels a day, but their oil isn't the light sweet crude that's so valuable, it's sour, meaning it requires a lot of extra refining before it can make it to Western markets where demand for higher quality oil makes it hard to sell it pure. That pushes up the price even as it adds supply.
Most Americans believe though that we'll be at $5 by the end of the year (hopefully not before I go on vacation in July), and the price of a barrel topped $140 for the first time today as the DOW plunged 350 points.
So I don't know what's on the horizon, but we're certainly in for a lot of ups and downs in the near term.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Some thoughts on the effects of increasing oil prices. The article suggests that it is referring to $200 per barrel of crude, but most of the stuff is already happening.
Which could easily occur in 2009, given that the head of Gazprom predicts crude oil will be hitting $250 per barrel next year. Thing being that Gazprom all by its lonesome little self could push prices that high: Russia exports far more fossil fuel than SaudiArabia, and nearly as much in oil alone.
Heck if the 2008 hurricane season (just cranking up) affects Gulf of Mexico oil production even somewhat nearly as much as the 2005 season, we could see crude oil going for $200+ per barrel before October.
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