Easter road trips pricey this year--Gas prices are putting a damper on some people's Easter travel plans

Published on: 2003-04-17 <a href=www.fayettevillenc.com>Fayetteville By Al Greenwood Staff writer

Gas prices are putting a damper on some people's Easter travel plans.

On the East Coast, the average price for a gallon of gasoline is $1.561, up 12 percent from $1.373 in December, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

As a result, Randall Reeves of Wilmington will spend less time fishing at Town Creek this Easter. His boat uses a lot of gasoline, he said.

Reeves was talking about gas prices Wednesday at the BP gas station on Cedar Creek Road in Fayetteville. He works for System Design & Integration Inc. of Wilmington, a company that installs electrical controls for customers in Fayetteville and other cities in North Carolina.

Gas prices have been so high for so long that System can no longer absorb the increase, said Dean Krause, who also works for the company. System Designs is passing the increased costs to its customers.

Unlike Reeves, Krause has no plans to travel during Easter, he said. ''As hard as I'm working, I'm staying home.''

Bill Spurr of Wake Forest was also buying gasoline at the BP station. He said price increases have not affected his travel plans. He was driving to Charleston, S.C., with his grandparents. He returns Friday and said he plans to stay in Wake Forest during Easter.

Throughout the country, Easter is not a big travel day, said Tom Crosby, spokesman for AAA Carolinas.

But many of the soldiers at Fort Bragg travel during Easter weekend because they have a training holiday Friday and because Easter falls in conjunction with spring break, said Jackie Thomas, Fort Bragg spokeswoman.

Soldiers filling up their cars will notice that gas prices are down from an average high in February of $1.663 a gallon, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Trend uncertain

That drop, however, is not enough to encourage people to get in their cars and travel, Crosby said. And this week's average price for gasoline is still nearly 10 cents higher than last year, according to the Energy Information Administration.

There's no telling if gas prices will continue to decrease or if they will begin to rise again, said Ed Erickson, an economics professor at N.C. State University who specializes in energy.

Prices could continue dropping because the war in Iraq is winding down and the downturn in the world economy has caused demand for gasoline to drop, he said. Strikes have ended in Venezuela, a major oil exporter, but Venezuela is not at full production, Erickson said. Also, prices usually increase as Memorial Day approaches, which is a big travel day.

Refineries are still producing heating oil, and not all of them have switched to gasoline, he said. Gas inventories in the United States are low.

''The fundamentals are still gritty,'' he said. ''It could change for the worse anytime.''

Staff writer Al Greenwood can be reached at greenwooda@fayettevillenc.com or 486-3567.