Local & State Headlines

Travel costs mean some to stay home

• High pump prices are keeping some off the roads this Memorial Day weekend.

Joshua Brown

ALBANY — Despite steadily rising gas prices, several Albany residents say they are moderately curbing their driving habits, though some interviewed Wednesday say they still plan on traveling for Memorial Day weekend.

According to a daily AAA report Friday, gas prices in Metro Albany hit their highest recorded prices at $3.85 per gallon for regular gas.

The state average Friday, according to AAA, was $3.86 for a gallon of regular gas.

Albany resident Kendra Brown, 20, said she wasn’t traveling anywhere for Memorial Day weekend, though if gas prices were lower she would have liked to have gone to the beach in Savannah.

“It (the cost of gas) is getting higher and higher. Everything is going up and I don’t know why,” she said Wednesday during a refueling stop at a BP station on North Slappey Boulevard.

Brown said she splits most of her driving between work — Albany Arthritis and Orthopedic Center — and Darton College, where she goes to school.

“I used to just get in my car and drive, but now if it’s not important, I don’t go,” she said. Because of rising prices, she’s started using a lower octane gas, though her car’s engine rattles if she uses the lower-priced fuel.

“I used to use 93 (octane gasoline) because regular (87 octaned) makes my valves rattle. But now I have to get what I can afford,” she said.

Kesha Phillips, 31, said she was going to visit her brother in Helen for the weekend, but only because she had to visit the family.

“It (gas costs) affects us, but we’ve got to go,” she said at the Shell station on Philema Road, adding that the tax rebate checks that the Internal Revenue Service is sending out will likely go into her gas tank.

Thanks to rising gas costs, she’s had to make her driving habits more efficient. For example, she said, she normally picks her child up around 6 p.m., but Wednesday was picking her up around 3 p.m. because she was already on that side of town.

Albany resident Nate Jones, 50, said he doesn’t travel on holidays much, and hasn’t done that for some time. He’s found other ways to adapt to increasing gas costs.

“Actually, what I’ve been doing is buying a lot of beer and cooking at the house,” he said. “I’m staying at the house and working on the house.”

Jones said he uses a fuel additive when he fills up his Ford F-150, which extends his gas mileage and helps him to combat gas prices, though he has done so for years.

More Headlines>>