This is starting to get silly.
Will the gas stations start offering financing on a fill-up soon?
Nope is 1.49 a gallon here in Huntsville Al. grin
Osip
How much are you paying for a gallon of milk or orange juice? Even $2.00 a gallon for gas is pretty reasonable when you consider how long the production time for oil is (meaning it isn’t exactly renewable).
Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard the argument that we spoiled Americans are paying way less for our fuel than Europe, etc.
To this I respond with a thoughtful
So What!!
We’re the land of the free, the home of the brave. We’re used to cheap fuel, there is fossil fuel to burn (pun intended). It’s out there in abundance.
When you start messing with the price of a basic staple like this (our gas prices have gone up 40 cents a gallon in one month here in northern Lower Michigan) it has a ripple effect on everything else.
I feel particularly sorry for those who work full-time at low-paying jobs and hover just around the poverty line. Many of them work in the “cities” around here, but they can’t afford to live in them, so they commute from more depressed communities farther away. We’re talking 30 to 50 miles, one-way, each day for a lot of these people.
Arbitrarily adding $10 to $15 to my weekly gas bill makes me bitch. For some of these people, though, it’s probably a real hardship.
In L.A. county, at the gas station where I fill up, 87 octane is $1.51 a gallon. But I get 89, which costs $1.59.
Here in Savannah, regular (87 octane) runs $1.37 - $1.44. I filled up today and it cost me $19.25 (13.5 gal @ 1.43). It hurts, but what are you gonna do? I have to go to work and perform certain tasks that require me to drive. There are plenty of other things I can bitch about besides gas prices. (not that YOU were bitching)
Why the hell is Chicago SO expensive? As I posted somewhere else gas near my home (I live about a mile from Wrigley Field…home the world famous losing Cubs) is $2.199/$2.299/$2.399 per gallon (prices for the three grades of gas they sell). So far I have seen NO one post a higher price…not even close in fact. You’d think at least California would be pricey for clean air additives and because – well – it’s California…just seems like it should be more than the good 'ol midwest.
As for saying Americans get off easy even at $2+ compared to other countries isn’t the point. You live your life and budget accordingly. I have a 35 mile drive each way to work (I’m a consultant…my main office is 8 miles away). After being used to $1.65 for a while and then move to $2.29 in a few months AND add a new, very long commute really hits in the pocketbook. I imagine if it stays at $2 for several months people will adjust…just stings at first.
North Carolina I think runs from $1.39 to $1.59. I filled up yesterday for $1.49. It jumped 20 cents in one day.
Yes, all those of you outside of Chicago can count yourselves lucky. $2.25 a gallon in the SW Burbs of Chicago, similar across the area. I’m thinking there must be some brutal monopoly in the transport industry or something. Maybe a price fixing scandal. I start a roundtrip 100 mile commute on Monday so you all can lick my puckered ass.
Anyways, I read a USA Today article which listed the nations highest fuel prices (note they’ve gone up considerably since in this area). Chicago was on top with $1.84/gallon on average, with San Fransisco in second at $1.65/gallon. No other city posted totals above $1.60, and the national average was around $1.35/gallon. Now, since then Chicago has held firm at well over $2.00/gallon. I fear the reasons, but considering Chicago is a railroad hub for the nation, I would imagine its not difficulty of access. There is no reason we should be paying premiums, and demand is definately not higher here than in cities like LA and Atlanta where the car is so heavily relied upon. This fucking sucks.
This is interesting, in that there appears to be some anomaly associated with the local Chicago market. Premium here was today @ $1.72 at the station I most often frequent. Others’ reports seem to indicate lower prices in most other places.
Gasoline, even at today’s prices, lags far behind almost any other consumer product in price rises. A $1.72 gallon of gas in 1980 prices is $0.91 - not what we were paying then (here it was about $1.30 - national average for regular in 1980 was ~$1.04).
So, yeah, I’ve seen the increases and I don’t expect them to go away. I use about 18 gallons a week and I’m expecting, over the next five years, to budget as much as $350 a month for gasoline.
Or drive less.
$1.55-$1.70 a gallon for premium gas here in Va. I wish it would get cheaper.
'bout $1.70 ish out here in wonderful Washington, DC. Glad I drive a motorcycle. Can’t help but laugh at the mobile mountains crowding the beltway. You BEST be rich driving that pig!
Here in Flint, MI, gas prices never hit this point. They sailed right freaking past it. As of last night, regular was $1.99.
Last September, there was a twenty-cent jump in one day. I even started a thread about it (I think I called it “Alright, who jacked the gas prices?”). They’ve been climbing ever since.
Prices have gone up between forty and fifty cents in just the last two weeks. Keeeerist, even cigarettes don’t do that.
Can someone explain the “why?” of this to me? Nuts & bolts, please. I do not get it at all.
$1.64 a gallon in SE IOWA
Why would it be cheaper in Georgia?
IIRC the january thread everyone was pretty much the same.
There may be more petroleum used here due to farming but that should not be a surprise to anyone.
The reason that gas is so expensive in Chicago AND Milwaukee AND 11 other places in the US is due to re-formulated gas. AKA RFG it is being forced on the consumers in these areas by the EPA to control air pollution, although it has NOT been proven to burn cleaner. The last RFG they tried they had to get rid of because it was determined to be a major water pollutant (MTBE). Actually, the new RFG may create MORE pollution because it is less efficient (BTU/gal), thus more has to be burned to go the same distance. Also RFG is patented by one manufacturer, few refineries are equipped to produce it,and the pipeline that carries it was shut down this week for maintenance, all contributing to low supply, therefore high prices.
$2.09/gal in Milwaukee for 87 octane
**I got so upset about gas prices, I created a web site for it.
Check it out GAS-PRICES.COM
**
Unfortunately, after selling a batch of ads based on initial hitcounts, the prices here dropped, people stayed away in droves, and I couldn’t meet the minimums to get paid. The site is now in mothballs. Live and learn.
Downstate Illinois, prices are fluctuating steadily (yes, I said “fluctuating steadily”) between $1.65 and $1.79. I’ve given up trying to figure it out, the same way I eventually got to the point where I gave up trying to figure out the Whitewater thing. Sometimes you just have to get on with your life, you know?
It really fucks me when gas does this.
I work 30 minutes away. Living closer, or having a closer job is just not feasible.
I school 60 minutes away. Again, living or schooling closer is not possible.
I also drive a 1990 Z24. A car with better gas mileage is, yet again, not possible.
I usually fill up every other day when class is in, or, now that I’m out of class but work more often, every third day. That’s between five and seven tanks every two weeks, which is my pay period. A full tank is 10-11 gallons.
I usually get between $280 and $330 per check, depending on hours, lunchbreaks, and days off.
I have to pay my parents $200 every other check for insurance and car payments.
When gas was only $1 to $1.20 or so, if I put away a hundred each check, that would easily pay for gas until my next paycheck.
Now that it’s between $1.50 to $1.80 around here, I’m forced to hold back nearly twice as much money for gas, $150 to $170 bucks.
That money’s not coming out of disposable income. That’s not my golf money, Goddamn it. That pays my fucking bills. That’s my fucking food money. That’s how I buy my clothes. That’s how I buy my mom fucking flowers for fucking Mother’s Day. That’s what gets my ass deodorant and takes me to the doctor when I’m fucking sick.
But does that fucking matter? No. It doesn’t. Because someone’s getting fucking rich.
Well fuck you. Fuck. You.
–Tim
Here in California, home of reformulated fuels and stricter emission controls it’s running about $1.58 in the north state. I dare say urban areas are at least 10 cents higher. What bothers me is that we are refining it here, should we pay less shipping? I should be able to fuel up at the refinery at cost!!
Who says mankind will never be able to travel at the speed of light? Have you ever seen how fast every gas station in your town changes its price upward when one does it?
And ChiefWahoo is right about why gas is so much higher in Chicago, Milwaukee, etc.
So, I understand why the Midwest is getting socked worse than everybody else. Chicago and Milwaukee and this reconstituted gas. This particular “summer” blend of that gas is the hardest and most expensive to make, according to a guy from the American Petroleum Institute that I talked to yesterday for a newspaper story.
So, OK, that makes sense. But why where I live? Why anywhere in Michigan? They aren’t selling that stuff here? Never did get a good answer.