Gas prices have dropped statewide by almost 20 cents a gallon in the past month, but experts say not to expect the low prices to last.
Marie Montgomery, a spokesperson for the Automobile Club of Southern California, said prices are still way up from what they were even in the past year.
“A year ago, we were sort of in the $2.50 range. It’s just every year pretty much since 2003, we’ve set new records for gas prices in California,” Montgomery said.
Despite the falling prices that started off 2008, Montgomery said they have reached a standstill, and have even begun to rise.
“Prices have stopped dropping (in) the last week to 10 days. But they’re not really going up by very much, they’re just sort of hovering at the moment. They’ve ticked up by less than a penny in L.A. County in the last week,” Montgomery said.
She also said that every year for the past few years, gas prices have decreased around this time of year, but spiked again in early summer, when consumption goes up.
Beth Di Leone lives in Hollywood, but commutes to her job as a research assistant at a lab at UCLA. She said she does not think much about the lower cost of gas.
“I won’t really be happy about a drop unless it goes down to $2 again,” Di Leone said.
The fact that people are so excited about paying a slightly smaller amount for gas actually makes Di Leone nervous about the future of oil costs, she said. She said if people feel satisfied by what she considers a minor decrease, no one should ever expect prices to go down to what they were several years ago.
“If this drop makes people this happy, it makes me realize that it’s never going to go down, so I’m going to have to make other arrangements,” Di Leone said.
Stanislav Parfenov, a chair of the Transportation Planners student group, said he thinks the drop is not permanent, and may be a political ploy in relation to the current 2008 presidential race.
“I think it’s temporary because of the election. Once it’s going to cool down, the prices are going to go up again,” Parfenov said.
On the other hand, he added, people should find alternatives to personal vehicle transportation to decrease traffic.
“From the transit point of view, higher gas prices are actually good because it gets people away from their cars and gets them to start using buses,” Parfenov said.
Montgomery said she thinks consumers are embracing different transportation options in response to the price increases.
“When they trade in their vehicles, they get more fuel-efficient vehicles, they figure out ways to use the train or bus,” Montgomery said. “You have to economize in other ways if your gas costs are going up because your commute costs more.”
Parfenov also said people should remember that a portion of what they pay at the pump goes back in to street maintenance.
“We use the gas tax to pay for our roads, and so one thing is that the state has become more gas efficient, (so) the state gets less gas money from the tax, therefore they cannot actually put this money into restoring infrastructure, and so on,” Parfenov said.
Montgomery said residents should enjoy the temporary price drop, but not expect the lower pump prices to last.
“Prices are going to go up again at some point, it’s just a question of when,” he said.