I wonder why more people haven’t been
talking about. Maybe they don’t even know.
First of all, I’m back. I had a good
(but busy) day off yesterday. Although Radio Jim didn’t go to
work, both TV Jim and History Jim were busy shooting ‘year in
review” shows and putting together a tour for NMU students that’s
happening this Friday. So I’m thinking that I may soon have to
take a day off just to recover from my day off.
But that’s in the future. While I
was out and about yesterday I noticed the continuation of something,
something I’ve been noticing for a couple of months now but
something I’ve not heard anyone else comment upon. And given the
way people howl about gas prices, I’m surprised no one else has
jumped on this.
Did you know that gas prices at the
stations in downtown Marquette (Krist, Freedom, Admiral) are 15 cents
a gallon lower than those on US-41 heading west out of Marquette?
Seriously; it’s something I’ve been noticing recently, and
confirmed while I was out and about yesterday. Prices at downtown
stations were around $2.48 a gallon, while on the highway they were
$2.64 a gallon.
Yup. If you head into the city gas is
16 cents a gallon (at least as of yesterday) cheaper.
Like I said, this is something I’ve
been noticing for a while now, and it’s a something that’s made
me laugh a little, if only because I don’t have to buy gas and
aren’t subjected to the various whims of the gas market. But if
you’re a tourist driving on US-41 through Marquette, or someone who
does a lot of shopping on the city’s west side, or someone heading
home to the West End after your day of work, and you need to fill up,
it’ll cost you. In fact, if your car has a 20 gallon tank it’ll
cost you an extra 3 bucks, whereas if you filled up one mile to the
east, if you filled up downtown, you’d save that three bucks.
Hmm.
Most complaints about gas prices in
Marquette (and there have been a LOT the past few years) have dealt
with two things—just how high they are compared to the rest of the
state, and just how uniform each and every station seemed to be in
charging those high prices. But now the latter is completely
different, and given how people love to complain about oil companies
and gas prices, I’m shocked that no one has raised a big stink
about the disparity between the prices at stations just a mile apart.
Who knows; maybe people have given up
complaining about gas prices and have moved on to complaining about
glass recycling. Maybe people are okay with stations charging more
on a busy highway than on a city street. Like I said, it makes no
difference to me whatsoever; I’m just shocked that given the volume
on the discussions about gas prices that no one else seems to have
picked up on it.
And it apparently doesn’t bother
people; driving past one of the highway stations I saw a string of
cars waiting to fill up, while a few minutes later at one of the
downtown stations the pumps were mostly empty. Maybe it’s just a
classic example of the law of supply & demand—more people fill
up on the highway, so you charge them more at those locations. I get
that. But based on the amount of complaining people have done about
paying for fuel, you’d think more of them would’ve noticed the
disparity and have gone to where the demand –and the prices—are
lower.
I’m not an economist, nor do I play
one on TV. But I have the sneaking suspicion that once people do
find out about the difference in gas prices—or once they care
enough about it—that the downtown stations will soon find
themselves with a lot more business.
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