Montgomery County gas prices are now higher than they were at the worst inflationary period in March 2022. Prices had dropped after Maryland instituted a temporary gas tax holiday, but have come roaring back since it expired on April 17, picking up steam in recent weeks.
The Exxon at 7975 Old Georgetown Road in downtown Bethesda, where there are few gas stations left, was at $4.99 and 9/10 cents Saturday in Bethesda. As of noon today, Google is giving the station's price for regular as $5.00 even. Liberty stations at the edge of downtown Bethesda were also at $4.99 as Sunday began. According to Gas Buddy, regular is $4.69 at Sunoco at 5201 River Road in Bethesda, where prices are usually significantly cheaper than downtown.
Gas is already over $5.00 at some stations. Exxon in Brookmont, a last gas stop before you hit the D.C. line out of Montgomery County, is charging $5.39, according to Gas Buddy.
Drivers are faring much better than that elsewhere in Montgomery County. Regular is "only" $4.25 at Carroll Motor Fuels at 12600 Twinbrook Parkway in Rockville as of two hours ago. It's $4.28 at Fast Fuels on the main drag in Damascus, at 9871 Main Street. In Kensington, Econoway is charging $4.29, as is the Sunoco at 18001 Mateny Road in Germantown. Yet it is 10 cents more at the other Germantown Sunoco at 19738 Germantown Road, according to Gas Buddy.
11 comments:
Expensive gas prices are a good way to encourage the use of mass transit, and helps folks understand the merit of living in a lively walkable place. The WalkScore of most of downtown Bethesda is 98 out of 100, considered a walkers paradise.
Europe has had very expensive gas for quite some time, which has stimulated the construction of many forms of rail transit.
Expensive gas also helps drive the purchase of more efficient and smaller vehicles, as well as hybrid and full electric cars and buses.
Ideally increasing gas taxes should be used to develop transit, and help wean us all on the wasteful use of personally owned, gasoline powered vehicles. Especially those big SUV one sees on 270 and the Beltway, usually with only one person on board.
9:58 AM's response is typical of someone who can't think of anyone outside their circle. Do you ever think about the people who can't afford to live here yet have to come here to work? Liberals love to tell everyone to take mass transit, (which they rarely use), and buy electric cars, (which are out of the price range of the people that actually have to commute here), and just generally preach without looking in the mirror.
Then there's the environmental disaster that is NICKEL, COBALT & LITHIUM. They're not mined with EV's and go look at the strip mines required to extract these minerals. I guess one of the bonuses for Democrats is that over 80% of cobalt mines are in central Africa and that 17 of 19 mines are directly controlled by the Chinese so they can payback campaign contributions all while exploiting countries they don't really care about.
The takeaway here is that there are consequences to every choice regardless of what these limousine liberals say.
I'm not surprised to see such an inane comment as the one above. How are you going to get the beans delivered to your Starbucks with high fuel prices? Right, you don't care, you have the money to pay $6 for a cup of coffee. Why don't you go peddle your 'high gas price' BS to farmers in the Shenandoah Valley and elsewhere? What about the effect high petroleum prices have on everything you basically see; your I Phone case is largely made from petroleum, your Tesla is as well. High fuel prices affect the poorest people, yet you who live within walking distance to many fine restaurants and entertainment care not for others.
Not to mention that you probably work from home and don't even USE mass transit - have you seen the filth and germs associated with it? And how about your billion dollar boondoggle of the Purple line - it's all shut down because a few palms stopped getting greased.
Please don't foist your wannabe do-gooderism on people who want nothing of the sort.
And don't even get me started on what a poor 'investment' public transportation is; billions wasted, funded by the very gas taxes you would be without if you were at the helm.
Thank God you are not.
"You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before" - Rahm Emanuel
Another pathetic politician heaping misery on the backs of innocent taxpayers.
The people who pretend to gnash their teeth over how "high fuel prices affect the poorest people" are almost always the same people who are against increasing access to mass transit, against raising fuel economy standards, and against making places like Bethesda accessible to people of various income levels.
7:59 PM Fails to see from their high-horse that BILLIONS are spent on mass transit with much of it wasted on projects like the Purple Line. As someone who rides the J2, (that's the metro bus line that runs between Silver Spring & Bethesda for liberals who have never ridden it yet support the boondoggle PL), it's rarely packed and very time efficient.
But, as always to Democrats, it's all fun and games when it's other people's money and they can brag at cocktail parties about what they're doing for the "little people" when the actual results don't matter.
I don't know why the author bothered to run such a non-issue article such as this. We (MoCo) are not immune from the petroleum price wars the entire nation is experiencing, and have to suffer through it just like the rest of the country. The only thing this story does is raise the whine level of radical, finger-pointing, conservatives, who want to do nothing but blame a liberal for all the ills of this country. Somehow these far rightwing nuts never offer a solution to the country's woes.
As someone who actually uses the J-line, it's very heavily used and absolutely gets bogged down during rush on E-W. And way to prove 7:59s point by being against further mass transit investment. PL will take a fraction of the time v. the current J-line and has already spurred more private investment than its public cost.
The People who can’t afford to live in Bethesda and come in for work should be using the METRO and not driving in, so they are not crippled by gas prices……
But yes, Bethesda is a Suburb where most people can afford the higher prices for gas. Because if you were sufficiently challenged financially it’s doubtful you would choose to live in Bethesda in the first place.
Where to start?
9:28 AM suffers from a lack of exposure to the truth. “Somehow these far rightwing nuts never offer a solution to the country's woes” – Really? Democrats control the WH, Senate & the House so how is the right supposed to change an agenda that consists of Russian Collusion, (How’s the Mueller investigation going?), January 6th and the latest issues the house deems of upmost importance over catastrophic energy prices: Abortion Bills & UFO Hearings PLUS Taxpayer Crack Pipes. Seriously? Seems to most of the county that the last president had the economy, border and domestic energy running better in every measurable metric.
12:52 PM Justifies over 5.6 Billion dollars in to save 8-10 minutes, (measured personally), during morning rush into Bethesda and evening rush into Silver Spring. Like most liberals, when the cost to maintain & operate this line get out of hand, they’ll forget they were ever in favor of it in the first place. Mass transit is a good thing but a true cost-benefit analysis was never truly studied much like the consequences of EV’s to the environment.
@9:58 AM: "Expensive gas prices are a good way to encourage the use of mass transit, and helps folks understand the merit of living in a lively walkable place."
This is the epitome of privilege speaking here. According to your principles, if gas was more expensive, more people would "understand" this, right?
Post a Comment