Pain at the pump for Memorial Day weekend pushes Henrico drivers and travelers to search for savings

Peyton Bruner’s Friday morning stop to fill his truck’s tank at the Exxon gas station at 7020 Staples Mill Road was strategically planned.

Travel is essential to his work removing dents from cars. While thriving, the increasing costs of gas was taking a toll on his wallet and his customers.

“It's definitely made it harder to get to some of the places I need to be. I do work all around Central Virginia, and, getting down to Chester, it's a lot more of an ordeal than it used to be,” said Bruner who typically shells out $150 a week to fill his truck’s tank. “Now it's made me have to raise some of my prices, which I don't like doing. Nobody wants to hear a bigger number when they're getting a bill.”

All around him, customers drove up to pumps for the gas station’s savings of $4.09 a gallon, eyeing the clicking ticker showing the increased cost to fill tanks.

One driver said they had traveled about 12 miles to that Exxon gas station for the savings.

Nearby, surrounding gas stations were charging from $4.20 to $4.59 a gallon. According to AAA, on average a gallon of gas in Henrico County costs $4.48 a gallon. That’s higher than the statewide average of $4.41 a gallon. The national average for a gallon of gas is $4.52.

Average prices for gas in Henrico are rising by the week. It’s up $0.14 from last week, up $0.53 from last month and up $1.60 from a year ago.

Bruner’s insurance company has a feature built into its app to help him find the cheapest gas within 10 miles, which led him to the Exxon station. That helps because the higher costs at the pump are having an impact on Bruner’s personal finances too.

“Everything I do is out of my truck. Everything for the truck's getting more expensive,” Bruner aid. “It's definitely bleeding over into other things. Outside of my workday, the more I spend on gas, the less I can get at the grocery store. It sucks.”

The rising cost of fuel led him to cancel a trip he was going to take with his roommate this Memorial Day weekend to see the rock band Keep Flying.

So instead of rocking out to their favorite live punk music, Bruner thought he’d work in his garden.

Staples Mill Exxon Trip Stop manager Karan Sharma said he made a concerted decision to lower the price of gas at the station understanding he’d earn lower margins.

“Because right now the prices are so high and people are just getting really hard time for the people to come with the prices for the gas thing,” Sharma said. “So we put less margin in it to make more people come in the store, and we get good business and people should be happy. It's a hard time right now, so everybody should get good things. It's the best price, cheapest price in the town. So everybody's coming over here and we are happy too.”

Lyft driver Abid Sid paused as he was pumping gas to say that he was constantly making changes because of the rising cost of fuel.

“Specifically, we have to cut back on our spending for my family of seven members. We now consume fewer types of food,” Sid said.

For Exxon customer Leila Parada, the increase cost of fuel meant being more strategic when out doing errands, combining multiple destinations in fewer trips and cutting back on smaller luxuries like perfumes and creams. She was attracted to the Exxon because of the lower price she saw on Google.

“My family members have to work more because of the increased cost of gas,” Parada said in Spanish. “I go out less. I have my exact day and schedule that I go out and do my errands so that I spend less. I strategize my destinations to be connected and then return.”

Her son and his family had to drive to Orlando to take her grandchildren to Disney World because one grandchild has special needs, with the knowledge that the long drive would be an enormous expense.

Hitting the road

Summer Moroch, an Exxon customer cutting back on her expenses and drawn to the station for the lower prices, was among the 1.21 million Virginians AAA predicted would be traveling during the long Memorial Day weekend.

But that’s slightly lower than last year by about 3,000 travelers, or 0.3%, due to increased gas prices and the costs of other items, such as groceries, that are cutting into budgets.

Nearly nine out of 10 Virginians – or nearly 1.07 million – who traveled Memorial Day weekend were predicted to do so by car, which is similar to travel on the roads last year.

“I’m actually going down to Myrtle [Beach] to see my mom,” Moroch said. “Luckily the further south you get towards Myrtle and Raleigh area, the cheaper gas is. But now, if I drive anywhere, it's just because I have to drive somewhere. I have to drive to work obviously. I try to avoid driving at all though because who wants to pay almost $60 for a tank of gas.”

Nearly 105,000 people in the state were expected to fly to their destinations during the holiday weekend, according to AAA, which was down about 0.7% from last year. Last week, Richmond International Airport RIC announced the beginning of summer travel season that's expected to usher in nearly 1.4 million passengers flying through Richmond.

Many other travelers this past weekend departed from the Staples Mill Amtrak train station, a few blocks away.

AAA reported rail, bus and cruising were predicted to be up nearly 3.6% during last year, mostly due to the popularity of cruising.

“Continued ridership growth underscores the essential role passenger rail plays in connecting communities along the Northeast Corridor (including points south) and across the nation,” said Beth K. Toll, Amtrak senior public relations manager.

At an Amtrak board meeting last Thursday, executive leadership said a record 20.6 million riders used the rails in April, a 5% increase from the previous year due to the rising cost of fuel. With the current geopolitical climate, Amtrak CFO Constin Corneanu said maintaining fuel reserves remains a key issue for the federally supported, quasi-public corporation that operates nearly all intercity passenger rail services across the United States.

At a Virginia Passenger Rail Authority meeting that same day, staffers said preliminary statewide passenger numbers from last month totaled 119,000 people, which is 8% less than the number of train passengers last year. VPRA attributed that dip to schedule changes caused by construction of a new bridge over the Potomac River.

Data showed that in April, more than 14,000 people boarded and 15,000 alighted trains at Staples Mill, maintaining the station’s spot as the busiest in Virginia.

Train travel 'more relaxing than driving on 95 and cussing'

On Friday morning, a crowd of travelers gathered to board at 11 a.m. train north.

The seven-member, multi-generational Stiff family came together from across the state to travel to a birthday of a family member in New Jersey.

“The train is more relaxing than driving on 95 and cussing up your drivers. So it works out,” said Clydia Stiff. “Traveling by train is more economical compared to the gas right now. We all were driving. We have at least four vehicle. Even just paying for parking. I think it’s better. “

David Hoover chose to take the train to New York City with his husband to see numerous theatrical performances because it's cheaper than flying and “it's easy to sit quietly and let somebody else drive,” he said, adding that he would never consider driving to New York City even if gas was down to $2 per gallon.

“It's just too much hassle. What do you do with the car once you get to New York?” Hoover said. “We love the train. We love public transportation in general. You just need more of it.”

Now Hoover is changing the number of trips he takes so that he completes all his food and other shopping at the same time. He’s not making so many trips around the area, and sometimes he's just not going places.

“Four-fifty a gallon is ridiculous,” Hoover said. “Usually, presidents don't have anything to do with high gas prices and they get blamed for it all the time, but this time, you start a war and disrupt the whole gas system, you can say it's [Trump's] fault. This one's on him.”

On Friday the new Sheetz gas station across from the Amtrak station at 7520 Staples Mill Road lured customers in with $3.88 a gallon Unleaded 88, a fuel blend containing 15% ethanol and 85% gasoline which is also known as E15. Unleaded 88 was priced at $3.88 a gallon and is typically sold at a discount compared to standard 87-octane regular gas, according to the Sheetz website.

At the pump, Mujahid Akil was filling up both his work vehicle and his partner Saniyah Sayyida’s Hyundai for the savings. His company had recommended the location and better comparative price. Using gas station rewards helps, too.

“We have gotten to the point where we're using 88 because that's the cheapest gas that we can get, and right now it's like if it doesn't mess up the car, then that's what we're willing to go with. I have a company gas card for my van, and I've seen it go from $60 to $80 to fill the tank up,” Akil said.

Sayyida said she stopped working as a food deliverer because the cost got too great and instead found a work-at-home job.

Grilling at home to save gas instead of travelling was the couple's weekend plans. Beach trips got too costly because of the high gas prices.

Sayyida is concerned about Nationwide Consumer and Fuel Retailer Choice Act (H.R. 1346) known as the E15 bill, which adds more ethanol to gas, something she learned was done back during World War II. She referenced the pure-gas.org website, which lists which gas stations sell ethanol-free gas.

“A lot of older cars are going to sadly reap the consequences of them doing that because the ethanol messed up your fuel tank and fuel emissions and it'll mess up current engine. So, if you have to get more premium gas, it's not going to be as premium as it once was. Do your research on the 15% ethanol gas because you don't want to mess up your car,” Sayyida said.

Dina Weinstein is the Citizen’s community vitality reporter and a Report for America corps member, covering housing, health and transportation. Support her work and articles like this one by making a contribution to the Citizen.