It’s becoming as much a part of late winter in Washington as scraping frost off windshields.
Gasoline prices are again on the rise in Snohomish County, signaling price rises that experts predict will continue deep into the summer travel season.
“In the past few years, it has become typical for gasoline prices to take a significant increase as we enter spring. We are seeing that happening right now,” Janet Ray of AAA of Washington said Friday.
The average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline now is $1.95 in the Everett, Seattle and Bellevue area. That’s up 14 cents a gallon from a month ago and 25 cents a gallon more than during the same period in 2004, according to AAA.
The federal Energy Information Administration forecasts gasoline prices will average more than $2 a gallon by the time spring arrives in late March. In general, gas will cost about 20 cents more per gallon during the first half of 2005 compared with the same period of 2004, according to the agency’s forecasts.
There are many reasons for the pre-spring price increases of the past three to four years, Ray said .
One is reduced gasoline supplies as refineries schedule maintenance and repairs to coincide with the annual shift away from heating oil production. The commodities market also historically reacts in ways that drive up prices, she said.
What it all means is more expensive gasoline, particularly heading into the summer travel season, which saw record prices in 2004. Prices climbed to $2.35 a gallon for regular unleaded in this area.
“We would anticipate that gasoline prices are going to be somewhere close to where they were last year,” Ray said, which means well in excess of $2 a gallon.
She advised people who are planning the classic family car vacation to build higher fuel costs into their travel plans. Even on a tight budget, higher prices at the pump can be offset by reducing expenses in other areas, she said. One option Ray suggested is eating picnic lunches instead of going to restaurants.
Consider this: AAA calculates that at current gas prices of about $1.95 a gallon, it would cost slightly more than $200 for the gasoline needed to drive a midsize car such as a 2004 Ford Taurus the nearly 2,700 miles round trip from the Puget Sound area to the Grand Canyon.
That same trip would have cost about $41 more at last year’s peak prices of $2.35 a gallon.
AAA Washington’s Web site, www.aaawa.com, has a feature that allows visitors to calculate the estimated fuel costs of a trip. It’s free, and a good tool for planning a road trip, Ray said.
Reporter Scott North: 425-339-3431 or north@heraldnet.com.
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