Habits change as gas soars
State College — As gasoline prices shot up to $3.75.9 a gallon Monday, nearing a new threshold of $4, Centre County residents were driving less and turning more to public transit, fuel-efficient cars and bicycles.
“Ridership is certainly up,” said Hugh Mose, general manager of the Centre Area Transportation Authority, where CATA buses in the past 30 days carried nearly 10 percent more passengers than in the same 30-day period last year.
Interest in carpooling has also increased. CATA has seen a 40 percent increase over the past two years in the number of calls from people seeking to form carpools.
At Eddie’s Bicycle & Sports Equipment in State College, owner Eddie Magulick has just had his best April in at least eight years and also has noticed a new sort of clientele walking into his East College Avenue shop.
“There’s certainly people talking about riding their bikes and commuting on them,” Magulick said, and some “are not the persons I would expect to see coming in looking for a bike to commute on. There’ve been a few people coming in saying, ‘I’m going to buy a bike because of the gas.'”
At Dix Honda Co. on West College Avenue, sales manager Jeff Stephenson said the high-mileage and long-popular Civic is getting even more attention today than in the past.
