Will higher gas prices in Wash. State deter you from going south?
Posted March 4, 2015 7:37 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Washington State will soon raise the price at the pump but will that affect how often you hop across the border to save money when filling up the tank?
Cross-border gas shopping is nothing new but a major gas tax hike will make it less enticing to head to the Evergreen State to gas up.
Washington is raising the state-wide gas tax by almost $0.12 a gallon to pay for a $15 billion transportation improvement plan that was approved by the State Senate earlier this week.
Gas analyst Michael Ervin with MJ Ervin & Associates says that likely won’t be enough to stop Canadians from heading south to fuel up.
“We’ve seen people cross the street so-to-speak, for even a two-cent price difference in Canada. Any price difference greater than that certainly will create the incentive. Of course the more gasoline you buy times the price difference, translates into more money left in the consumer’s pocket.”
If the new tax were to take effect today, current prices, according to GasBuddy, would mean fuel would still be roughly $0.20 cheaper in Washington State.
Ervin says nothing short of even-pricing will completely stop us from getting gas across the line.
“It may reduce the incentive for cross-border shopping of gasoline but I expect that pump prices will still be less in the Washington State area than in the Lower Mainland of BC so there will still be a fairly strong incentive for people to continue to cross-border shop for gasoline.”
He explains it is nearly impossible for Canadian gas stations to compete right now.
“Right across the country, gas stations close to the US have had challenges. They’re pretty much prevented from doing very much about that, they can’t compete on-par with US stations because in order to do so, they’d be selling gas at a loss. So many close to border stations rely on the service they provide and the convenience they provide. So it’s going to be up to consumers if they want go across the border and weigh that against lower prices.”
Prices on GasBuddy.com, show the average price of fuel in Canada is more than $0.20 cheaper than what drivers are paying in BC.
