Holiday travelers cope with gas prices
NEWARK, Del. - March 21, 2008 Plenty of motorists were filling up their tanks at the rest stop on I-95 in Newark today and from the looks of things, plenty are hitting the highways despite $3.21 for a gallon of regular gas.
"Barrels of oil prices keep going up and up and we keep paying, when we're using less and less and there's surpluses all over the place, something's not right," Kathy Schilling of New York City said.
"There's really nothing I can do about, so we're kind of stuck," Katherine Cleary of Washington, D.C. said.
Like it or not, a local economist has a prediction about gas prices.
"I'm afraid the gas prices will likely continue to go up," Professor James Butkiewicz of the University of Delaware said.
Some industry watchers predict it could go up as high as $4 a gallon, though Butkiewicz is not certain of that.
"It's hard to say, it depends a lot on what happens to the underlying price of a barrel of oil, but if the value of the dollar continues to plummet, it could go up a bit more," Butkiewicz said.
That's why alternative forms of transportation such as bicycling may just be the key for some, while others who have to drive continue to pay the price
AAA estimates the average price for a gallon in Philadelphia is $3.23, New Jersey at $3.03 a gallon, and Delaware with an average of $3.19.
