Charlotte drivers cringe at record gas prices, but see little they can do about it
David McIntyre spends his days driving around the Charlotte area for his job as a paint contractor. So when gas prices shoot up, there’s not much he can do.
“I have to drive the same amount,” he said as he waited to fill the tank of his pick up truck at a midtown Circle K this week.
But lately, the gas prices are so high McIntyre, 44, was forced to make some tough choices — he recently raised his rates at his business.
Meanwhile, gas prices just keep climbing.
“I’m not trying to look around too much (for lower prices),” he said. “It is what it is.”
The national average price for a gallon of gas – $4.06 – has reached its highest point since July 2008, according to AAA. The average price for a gallon of gas in Charlotte was $4.19 on Wednesday, data from GasBuddy show — up more than a dollar since the beginning of the year.
Making changes
The sky high prices are spurring some Charlotte area residents to alter some habits.
“Nobody likes to see prices go up,” said Janis McCarter, who stopped at the QT off Central Avenue on Wednesday morning. “We will just have to make our adjustments.”
For McCarter, 75, that will include going out to eat less and maybe making fewer trips to visit her sister in Kannapolis. Her time on the road is mostly kept to the seven-minute drive from her home to Southpark, where she works part time in a bookstore.
“To me, stopping and putting gas in the car is a necessary evil. I can’t eat it, I can’t wear it,” McCarter said. “But… to complain and kvetch about it — what does it accomplish?”
At the next pump over, David Collado, 44, said he remembers a time during his three years in Charlotte when he could fill his tank for $1.76 a gallon. He used to budget $20, maybe $25, a week for gas. Now, that number has doubled.
“It’s gone up a lot,” he said, topping off the tank of his work van. “Too much.”
Other Charlotteans said they are combining trips for errands or trimming expenses on necessities like groceries. And some noted while they were being inconvenienced, gas prices were spiking in part because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where there was widespread suffering.
‘The highest I’ve ever seen’
Stacey Perrow, who works in communications in the city, called rising fuel prices “one of those built-in necessary costs that you have to adjust for... But I’m fortunate to be in that position.”
Still, the cost of a gallon has increased so sharply it’s hard not to notice, said Kendra Lipscomb, who was filling her Kia hatchback at at the Circle K on Charlottetowne Avenue Tuesday.
“It’s crazy. This is the highest I’ve ever seen,” Lipscomb said. “And I’m 43, I’ve been driving for a long time.”
Lipscomb’s morning commute is 40 minutes long, she said — a trip from the university area that involves dropping her 4- and 12-year-old off at school and daycare in midtown before heading to work at Dilworth Elementary. There’s not much she can do to cut back on her mileage, she said.
“I have no choice but to drive,” she said.
She typically tries to fill up closer to home, Lipscomb said, where she notices prices are slightly lower.
Lipscomb said she passed a station Tuesday morning where prices were still just under $4 a gallon. “I thought, ‘Oh I can probably find it somewhere cheaper.’ ”
But instead, she ended up at the Circle K, shelling out $4.20 a gallon.
This story was originally published March 9, 2022 at 5:57 PM.
