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Gas prices approach $5 per gallon in Colorado Springs ahead of Memorial Day weekend

Colorado Springs’ gas prices jumped 17 cents overnight, tracking a statewide trend and approaching $5 per gallon Wednesday.

On average, a gallon of gas in the city set drivers back $4.828 on Wednesday, according to AAA Colorado. On Tuesday, the average was $4.652 per gallon, the travel club said.

While sticker shock might be real for those road-tripping, if 2022 is anything to go by, some people will still take their Memorial Day vacations.

In 2022, a AAA survey found that two-thirds of Americans said gas was too expensive at $3.53 per gallon. At $4, 60% they said they’d change their driving habits or lifestyle, something 75% repeated at $5 per gallon.

A AAA survey found that at $5, 80% of Americans would opt to drive less, with 18- to 34-year-olds more open to carpooling than those 35 and older, said Skyler McKinley, a regional spokesperson with the driving club.

A Conoco gas station at the intersection of Fountain and Murray Boulevards with gas prices approaching $5 per gallon on Tuesday. (Alex Edwards, The Gazette)

“This is a traditional American travel holiday, and the folks who had plans to travel will travel over Memorial Day,” he said. “I am not expecting a significant diminution in travel as a function of high prices.”

Rather than reducing travel, McKinley believes there might be a “substitution effect,” with more people taking a vacation over Memorial Day, rather than waiting and risking higher prices later in the summer.

Negotiations between the U.S. and Iran might also have a chilling effect on the oil and gas market. President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced that peace negotiations between the U.S. and Iran were in “final stages,” according to Reuters.

After the announcement, gas prices dropped slightly, according to Patrick De Haan, the head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy. But he warned on social media that if the talks don’t lead to lasting peace through the Strait of Hormuz, where roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil supply flows, “prices will likely surge again next week.”

“This is the most volatile summer at the pump in years, and the Strait of Hormuz closure is at the center of it,” De Haan said. “Americans are going to pay billions more to get where they’re going this summer, and even after the strait reopens, it could take a year or more for prices to fully recover.”

Millions of Americans are still planning to drive, however. A GasBuddy survey found that 56% of Americans plan to take a driving trip of longer than two hours this summer, compared with 69% last year.

Gas prices climbed Wednesday to nearly $5 per gallon at 30th Street and Garden of the Gods Road. (Amelia Herman, The Gazette)

Nationally, AAA projects 45 million Americans will travel at least 50 miles this Memorial Day weekend, up from last year, when 44.8 million traveled. This is well below the GasBuddy forecast.

McKinley attributes this to two travel economies: people who have discretionary income to spend on travel and people who don’t “regularly see travel as a feature of their life.”

“For the folks who can travel, they’re going to travel at a more expensive rate,” he said. “For the folks who have historically never been able to take time off over a long weekend, they continue to be locked out of the travel economy.”

To find the cheapest gas in Colorado Springs, head to GasBuddy.com, which maintains a crowdsourced list of gas prices. Occasionally, the prices will be cash-only or feature locations restricted to club members, or military personnel and those with base access.



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