DRIVEN TO CHANGE
Commuters turn to transit, electric cars and bicycles as pump prices hit another high
For Kevin Loh, driving past Metro Vancouver gas stations displaying $1.59-per-litre prices validates his family’s decision a month-anda-half ago to replace one of two vehicles to go electric.
“Every time we watch gas prices go up a penny or two, we go, ‘Wow, we made the right decision,’ ” said Loh, who runs a small video-production company with his wife, Vicki.
With pump prices remaining persistently high, the Lohs are among the Lower Mainland consumers being pushed into different transportation decisions by the soaring cost, whether it’s pursuing electric vehicles, stepping onto transit or parking their cars and taking out bicycles more often.
The Lohs had been looking at electric cars for more than a year, Kevin said, but “when gas hit a buck 50, then a buck 55, we just pulled the trigger,” replacing their Toyota Matrix hatchback with a used 2015 Nissan Leaf.
Even the Lohs’ two children, ages 10 and 12, prefer the Leaf over the Toyota Sienna minivan they still own, which costs over $100, and some pain, to fill up with gas.
“We’re very excited about (the Leaf ) still,” Loh said.
Gas prices rose to the cusp of $1.60 per litre Wednesday as fuel inventories on the U.S. West Coast shrank, said fuel-industry analyst Dan McTeague of Gasbuddy.com, and there is little sign of change in the situation until at least the weekend.
“Some retailers tend to shed those retail margins by two or three cents, so we could be back to $1.53 or $1.54 by Saturday or Sunday,” McTeague said.
The rise in prices over recent months of about 25 per cent is squeezing many family budgets, said debt counsellor Gary Tymoschuk. He said the general rule is that households should only spend 15 per cent of their budget on auto maintenance, including fuel, but that can be a struggle for lower-income earners who need to make long commutes.
“If you’re already living paycheque to paycheque, where the heck is that going to come from?” asked Tymoschuk, vice-president of the Credit Counselling Society of B.C.
In recommending changes to budgets, Tymoschuk said the society encourages people to consider using transit more often. While services such as TransLink do raise fares, they typically don’t swing as wildly as fuel prices.
TransLink’s numbers show that more people are using transit — boardings were up 4.3 per cent in March compared with the same month a year ago — said spokesman Chris Bryan. And 2017 saw ridership increase 5.7 per cent compared with 2016, Bryan said.
However, ridership is driven by a combination of rising gas prices, improved service levels and employment growth, so “it is difficult to separate out the degree to which might be driving-ridership increases.”
Likewise for bicycle commuting, said Paul Dragan, owner of the three-location Reckless bike shop. Weather and improving bicycle infrastructure in Vancouver are bigger influences on increasing bike sales, he said.
“What we do tend to see when gas prices spike is an increase in our repair business,” Dragan said.
People will pull bikes out of garages or storage, spend what they might have spent on a tank of gas, and then bicycle to a few more places they might have driven to in the past, Dragan said.
Others, however, have fewer choices, such as Mitch Lyles, who was filling up his V8 Dodge pickup Wednesday afternoon at the Chevron station at Grandview Highway and Rupert Street.
“I have mandatory errands I’ve got to run and I don’t have an option to carpool with anybody,” Lyles said. “In terms of changing my driving habits? It’s not. I’m just going to have to find a way to make more money.”
In Victoria, Premier John Horgan said increasing domestic refining capacity would be one way of giving consumers relief and he was adamant that recent spikes in prices have nothing to do with the dispute between B.C. and Alberta over Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project.
“It’s a result of a lack of (gasoline) supply,” Horgan said. “That didn’t just happen in July when a new government was elected, that has been building over decades.
“More refined product will mean a break for citizens. More export of raw product will not help us at all.”