Gas prices falling back to Earth

Los Angeles Gas Prices provided by GasBuddy.com

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The above map comes courtesy of the Gas Buddy website. As for the photo at right, it was taken a couple of hours ago at the corner of Fletcher and San Fernando Road in the Glassell Park area of Los Angeles.

Over the weekend, I saw an increasing number of gas stations with the price of regular fall under the $4 mark. The Times' Up to Speed blog reports that gas prices in California today are the lowest they've been since May, according to the U.S. Energy Department.

My question for readers: Are you driving more now? Did gas prices inspire you to drive less? Have your habits changed? Leave a comment please -- regular readers know that I've been skeptical that $4 gas was going to change driving habits in the long-term.

--Steve Hymon

photo: Steve Hymon / LAT

Comments

[yours truly, Johnny Dollar]

Corn to Ethanol; whose bright idea is that?
Another government subsidy; windmills to energy;
another government subsidy.
You asked for it; you got it (Toyota).
The world lives on the price of corn
(not the price of petroleum).

[LAofAnaheim]

Gas prices go down --> traffic goes up --> increased auto-demand policies (widening lanes, anti-gridlock zoning) --> pollution --> global warming, etc.. horrible. Does anybody care about the environment anymore?

[Bart Reed]

Gas prices were going down the last half of July. However, Metro and Metrolink still achieved unheard of record ridership numbers during the second weakest month of the year in terms of ridership.

Sure some people are continuing to drive, but many found they could get by with Metro for $62 versus $400 or $500 for fuel and other variable costs.

I am sure that some will slip back to driving, but with many schools starting up right now and up to after Labor Day, I think transit ridership will stay at the same higher plateau as all sorts of other costs such as food have taken that critical bump, while wages are stayed stable.

[Spokker]

Gas prices going down as the Summer comes to a close? What a surprise.

Gas prices are still way higher than they were a year ago this time.

[BOB2]

Steve,

The price of gasoline is still up over nearly 300% in the last 5 years (Gasbuddy is a great site for information like that--thanks). People drove less during the run up in Spring 07 too, back in the "good old days" when it was only $2.95 a gallon. Since then folks have had their home values drop 20%, and seen real prices of everything else go up a good 10%. Now many are being laid off in those jobs like construction that drove great distances to distant job sites. Some say there might even be a recession, except our hightly credible Federal Government says there isn't?

People are not driving more, because they're overjoyed with campaign rhetoric that blathers on about how good things are now that gas is "only" $3.95 a gallon? That's still well over a buck higher than a year ago.

I would have taken the Gold Line to the Red Line to Hollywood today, but did drive. The MTA buses ran down Lake Avenue ahead of schedule like they often do so I couldn't wait another 25 minutes for a buse to get to the Gold Line in time? I'm definitely still driving less, if there is a way to avoid it. If we ran our transit system in a proper manner, with frequent, on-time, reliable service, I'd use it even more

BOB2