Pain at the pump

Mar 15, 2008 By Richard Masoner Posted in The Archives Tagged with Commute by Bike

From political cartoonist Walt Handelsman..

Regular gasoline is going for $3.65/gallon at the discount places near my home this weekend, and diesel has been over $4/gallon for a couple of weeks now. How much is it where you live?

0 thoughts on “Pain at the pump”

Badger says:

March 15, 2008 at 12:34 pm

Gas was $3.12 at costco this morning. It’s a great day becuase I was on my bike as I rode by from work. I don’t think this situation is getting any better soon!

Reply
CJ says:

March 15, 2008 at 12:54 pm

I think the 89 Octane/10% Ethanol stuff is about $3.15 per gallon here in Lincoln. Premium is around 3.50.

I rode to work today as well.

Reply
Karl McCracken says:

March 15, 2008 at 1:36 pm

$8.45 . . . but I’m in the UK. When I first did the conversion from.Â£ / litre, I thought I’d made a mistake. Then I though that it was because I was converting from.Â£Sterling to $Banana Republics of America 😉

But it turns out that we just pay a boat load of tax!

Reply
Jennifer says:

March 15, 2008 at 1:51 pm

I see $3.67 regular unleaded in Chicago.

Reply
Noah says:

March 15, 2008 at 2:04 pm

3.259 in the southern suburbs of Kansas City. And the only reason I gassed up today is because I’m taking care of my parents’ pets while they’re traveling. I used *their* gas card 🙂

Reply
anakcu says:

March 15, 2008 at 2:40 pm

$3.269 for 87 octane regular in suburban MD this morning. We drove just across the PA border for our last day of mid-Atlantic skiing for the season and I was surpirised by the number of cars that were keeping it to 65 mph. Of course, this appeared to annoy drivers of H2s and Escalades trying to maintain 80mph.

Reply
Nathan says:

March 15, 2008 at 3:02 pm

We are showing $3.39/ gal. for discount reg unleaded gas in the Chicago suburbs. Ouch. Any mode other than a single passenger vehicle is cheaper right now. See you on the bus or bike…

Reply
rick says:

March 15, 2008 at 3:23 pm

What I find interesting is that it costs much less to refine diesel fuel yet it sells for more, the reverse of what it was years ago. The oil industry is a huge screw job.

Reply
Lance says:

March 15, 2008 at 3:39 pm

$3.19 in northwest Kansas

Reply
Joe says:

March 15, 2008 at 4:14 pm

$3.09 in Minneapolis. Many of us ride year around here, warm clothes and studded tires. That said, we are finally getting to warmer weather and I’ll not drive a car for many months to come.

Reply
Mike Myers says:

March 15, 2008 at 6:30 pm

The dollar is worth much less than it once was. Therefore it takes more dollars to buy the same amount of goods. Yes, the laws of supply and demand are affecting the price of gas, and the oil companies are screwing us, but the value of the dollar is ultimately responsible.

Gas is $3.35/gallon here, but my county has 6 cents more tax per gallon than our neighboring counties. That 6 cents was passed to pay for future road improvements the county commissioners(who are all in the pockets of the builders) said we would need due to the housing boom. Well, guess what? The housing market has died here. Hundreds of construction workers are out of jobs. Very few houses are being started. BUT I don’t see the taxes coming down.

The only good news is the proposed road improvements include 10 miles of multi-use trail to connect to the Withlacoochee Trail. As it stands now, I can get on the Suncoast Trail and ride down to Tampa—-but I don’t know how to get to Seminole Heights, Jack!

Reply
Mike Weiland says:

March 15, 2008 at 6:42 pm

In Austin, TX gas is going for $3.15 a gallon.

Reply
wannaCmore says:

March 15, 2008 at 7:10 pm

$3.099 for the cheap stuff here in the Tulsa area. (My seven yr old is reading as I type, so I have to refrain from posting my true feelings about the oil industry ;()

Reply
GaryJ says:

March 15, 2008 at 8:03 pm

$3.19 for the 89 octane with 10% Ethanol here in Sioux Falls, SD. Went to my LBS looking for a commuter today (Bianchi San Jose), not just because of the price of gas, but health and other things too, like most others here…but yeah, the price of gas is definately helping with the push to get started. No San Jose’s in stock, sold the last yesterday, so they will be checking Monday if they can get one….if not, I will be seeing what it will cost to build up a Surly Cross Check.

Sorry to steal the thread…..

GaryJ

Reply
Mark says:

March 15, 2008 at 8:43 pm

I just paid $3.12 the other day here in Minneapolis but I don’t much mind since most of my miles are on the bike. I think I put gas in the car earlier this year but I’m not sure, it might have been in December…

I calculated my mileage for a while but found it hard to remember to check the car odometer when I didn’t get into the car until the middle of the month.

Reply
burnsey says:

March 16, 2008 at 12:50 am

Saw signs for $3.29/gallon for 87 here in Asheville, and am hearing more moaning from friends and coworkers about the cost of gas, and the overall lack of buying power of the dollar. Groceries are killing me these days, no doubt a result of sustained higher fuel costs.

Reply
asbjorjo says:

March 16, 2008 at 2:41 am

I don’t own a car, but I think here in Norway it’s close to $9 a gallon.

Reply
Marrock says:

March 16, 2008 at 10:50 am

Depending on where you look, it runs from $2.98 to $3.05 in my part of NJ.

From what I hear so far NJ has the lowest gas prices in the US.

Reply
Jett says:

March 16, 2008 at 8:05 pm

I’m glad the bike is entering the consciousness of motorists in one form or the other.

I’ll have to remember to look at the prices at the gas station the next time I’m near one. I’m usually looking for something to put in my water bottles when I’m at an establishment that sells gas ;-).

Reply
wannaCmore says:

March 16, 2008 at 8:49 pm

BTW, I saw on CBS a story about this gas station in Gordon CA. When they started filming in the morning, the posted price was $5.19, when they were wrapping it up, the price was $5.39!

Reply
Fritz says:

March 17, 2008 at 12:02 am

Thanks for the comments, all. It’s interesting to see the variations around the USA and the world.

Gordon is a suburb of Fresno, where the most expensive premium is selling for $3.97 right now. $5+ would be for 100 octane fuel for high performance sports cars like Ferrari’s and such.

California is sports car central. I regularly see a yellow Lotus Elise and a red Lambourghini Diablo on my commute in Silicon Valley — it’s kind of fun to pass them in congested traffic. I occasionally run into an older Delorean near my home. I also saw a late model Maserati last week — wow, that’s an amazing automobile.

Reply
Eric says:

March 17, 2008 at 7:26 am

It’s $4.60 here in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

Reply
db says:

March 17, 2008 at 10:16 am

It’s $3.17 this morning in Boise.

Reply
IDbob says:

March 17, 2008 at 2:45 pm

$3.19 for unleaded, over $4.00 for diesel. southeast Idaho

Reply
mikerbiker says:

March 19, 2008 at 8:33 am

I’m not sure what the price generally is. The media says that the price of gas in a prime concern of all Americans. Yet, living in a 1 car family that my SO primarily drives on her 5 mile roundtrip commute, by the time we wind up filing the car, the price has changed dramatically up or down, fill-up to fill-up.

Doing most of my traveling by bicycle, the price of gas here in eastern Virginia is mostly unknown to me.

Reply
nat says:

March 19, 2008 at 9:08 pm

WRT the UK vs. US price: while it’s true that taxes on gas in most (all?) European countries are a lot higher than in the US, that ignores all the hidden subsidies that go towards gas prices in the US, effectively taxing the entire populous instead of just the gas-users. Things like tax breaks and subsidies for oil refineries. Not to mention indirect costs, like the opportunity costs of foreign policy decisions made to preserve the flow of oil, and/or try and keep its price low. I read an article once where someone attempted to quantify all of these additional costs associated with gasoline, to get an idea what the true cost would be, if we payed it directly at the pump. Their conclusion was that, even with all the state and federal taxes, we were paying roughly 1/4th the true cost of a gallon of gasoline. This was back when a gallon of gas was ~$1.50, and a barrel of oil was going for ~$25, or roughly a third of the current price, so keep that in mind. I don’t recall what %age of the price stemmed from the price of the crude itself, but it’s unlikely any of the other factors have decreased substantially. So i’d guesstimate that the true price currently is at least 3x what we’re currently paying. (Which correlates neatly with the price of gas in much of the EU, where i get the impression the gas taxes are at least intended to cover the costs, in some fuzzy sense.)

Regardless of the exact number, people have nothing to complain about in the current price of gas, because it’s definitely heavily subsidized (if to an unknown degree), so they’re already getting a big break.

Reply
cait says:

April 15, 2008 at 9:08 pm

um… 3.77 regular 4.01 for the supreme. Joy joy joy

Reply
doug says:

May 23, 2008 at 10:03 pm

Hey there, consider yourselves lucky.
We are being gouged to the tune of $5.75 per gallon,CDN. It is nothing more than greed, gouging, and imaginary “fears” by “speculators”.
They are screwing us bigtime.
I encourage rotating boycotts.
On Monday, boycott Esso/Exxon.
On Tuesday, boycott Shell.
On Wednesday, boycott Petrocanada.
On Thursday, boycott Sunoco.
On Friday, boycott BP
etc, etc, etc.
You’ll see the price of gas fall dramatically because of their fear of lost sales and the fact that they realize that we can affect their bottom line.

Reply
CG says:

August 20, 2008 at 10:07 pm

$5.26

Reply
Iain says:

August 22, 2008 at 3:18 am

How about this one then, in the UK regular unleaded is.Â£1.11 per litre or.Â£5.04 per UK Gallon or $9.42 at todays (22nd Aug) exchange rate!

Reply
Pradeep B V says:

November 7, 2009 at 4:26 am

$4.06 here in Bangalore, India.

Reply

Pain at the pump

Get Deals & Inspiration!