Holiday motorists face rise at pumps, Uptick expected to be short-lived
Crystal Johnson of Oklahoma City fills up Wednesday at the Pilot Travel Center on Interstate 40 in North Little Rock. She and her children were on their way to Georgia.
Former Hurricane Harvey is driving up gasoline prices in Arkansas and elsewhere as motorists hit the highways for Labor Day weekend, and pump prices are expected to continue rising even after the holiday.
Better news for Arkansas is that rain from the remnants of Harvey should move out of the state by Friday, and skies will be mostly sunny through Labor Day across the South and Midwest, according to the National Weather Service’s weekend forecast.
The average price for regular unleaded gasoline in Arkansas was $2.17 a gallon Wednesday, up 7 cents from a week ago, with the potential to go as high as $2.40 a gallon next week, said Don Redman, public affairs specialist for the AAA travel club in New Orleans. The national average Wednesday was $2.40 per gallon, up 6 cents from a week ago.
“We certainly expect it to increase and could increase by as much as another 21 cents or so per gallon,” Redman said Wednesday about Arkansas gas prices. “The $2.40 figure is a rough estimate. We expect the peak to come quickly after the holiday, yet the price to come back down in mid- to late September.
“We still don’t know the extent of damage at Houston and Beaumont,” Red-man said, referring to oil refineries shut down during Harvey, which hit the Texas Gulf Coast as a Category 4 hurricane Saturday. Harvey soon became a tropical storm and drenched the area with days of rain, causing widespread, catastrophic flooding. “Certainly we can expect prices to go up, but not to last very long,” Redman said.
Gas prices for Arkansans are about the same as they were at the start of the holiday weekend in 2015 but are about 11 cents higher than last year, according to AAA statistics.
Travelers can find gas price information along their routes using a free AAA mobile app, at AAA.com/mobile, that can be used to map a route, book a hotel or access AAA roadside assistance.
A just-unveiled feature from the state Department of Transportation also is likely to help travelers and daily commuters. The agency’s idrivearkansas.com travel information site activated a network of traffic cameras Tuesday showing heavily traveled points along state highways. The site previously showed traffic and travel conditions on color-coded maps, but the cameras now provide real-time traffic views.
“Our intention was to roll these out before the Labor Day weekend started,” said Danny Straessle, the agency’s public affairs director. “So far, everything’s looked good.”
The public put the live cameras to the test Wednesday, when a tractor-trailer rig turned over on Interstate 30 near downtown Little Rock just before morning rush hour, blocking two eastbound lanes into the city and backing up traffic for miles for hours.