Gasoline remains a bargain

The statistics say we're still logging fewer miles and using the bus more

Gas prices are climbing again, and Antoine Campbell is recalling the lessons of forced frugality.

"This is about the most I've paid in a little while," Campbell said Monday at a BP station in southwest Durham, where he pumped regular into his silver Malibu at $1.749 a gallon. "Let's hope it doesn't get back up to $4."

Campbell, 21, is a senior at UNC-Chapel Hill. When pump prices peaked last summer, he said, "I couldn't go home much to visit my parents in Fayetteville."

Prices plunged in the fall, and the Triangle average for regular hit a five-year low of $1.572 on Jan. 2. Since then the local average has bounced back to $1.743 as of Monday.

Although gas is still a relative bargain, the chilling economy is reinforcing the thrifty habits we learned last summer.

Bus ridership has stayed high. The Durham Area Transit Authority hauled more than 500,000 passengers in October for its busiest month ever; its rider count in December was 10 percent higher than in December 2007.

The Federal Highway Administration says total driving mileage in North Carolina was down 5 percent in October, the latest month for which numbers are available, compared with the same month a year earlier.

Jamie Tharp of Durham was unemployed from May to October, when gas prices stayed above $3.50. Now she works as an account manager for a digital technology company.

"I was enjoying the fact that I now had a job and gas was so low," Tharp, 31, said Monday. "I thought I was making up momentum for having been out of work for so long."

She drives a high-powered BMW 325i, and the owner's manual recommends premium gas. She noticed that gas was getting pricey again when the cost of a 15-gallon fill-up slipped above $30.

Premium was posted at $2.099 Monday when she stopped at a Kangaroo Express on N.C. 54 in south Durham. To stay below her $30 threshold, she tanked up with the middle-octane "plus" grade at $1.899 a gallon.

"Because of the gas prices and just trying to be frugal, I'm starting to alternate tankfuls between 'plus' and premium," Tharp said.

Even though OPEC has cut oil production, the worldwide recession this year is expected to keep demand and prices well below last summer's levels. Gas prices appeared to level off late last week, and crude oil prices fell below $40 a barrel Monday.

"Demand is still down in the United States because people continue to drive less," said Carol Gifford, spokeswoman for AAA Carolinas. "So it's possible that, even with a cut in production, we may see gas prices start going down again."

Jim Evans hopes not.

As he fueled his Chrysler mini-van for $1.679 a gallon at a WilcoHess in Chapel Hill, Evans voiced an opinion rarely heard around the pump: America needs to push gas prices higher.

"We need to put a healthy gas tax on, to keep the demand as low as possible," said Evans, 49, a banker. "Because a lot of our foreign problems are related to issues around petroleum."

He'd like to see a variable tax that would keep pump prices from dropping below $2.50. As oil prices rise and push the "natural price" of gas above $2.50, "then remove that extra tax," he said.

Evans worries that Americans will not stick with recent trends of riding the bus more and driving their cars less.

"When gas prices are at $4, people have a strong incentive to slow down, to cut back on their driving," he said. "But now that gas prices have fallen, their incentive to take public transit and to buy smaller cars is reduced."

Campbell doesn't see it that way. He gets home to see his folks more often these days, but he still saves fuel when he can.

"I know that running a lot of little errands eats more gas," Campbell said. "I try to plan a better route when I'm going to do stuff, to make it as short as possible.

"So when it does get to $4 again, it won't be hard to conserve."