To Poor to speed

Friday, May 2, 2008

The Waldorf nursing student said skyrocketing gas prices have taken a toll on her and her husband’s budget, whether they’re at the pump, commuting to work or at the grocery store.

‘‘I bought my car in October 2005. When I first got it, it cost $20 to fill it up. The other day it cost $42,” she said.

Shlagel said her husband, who drives a Ford F-150 truck, hasn’t filled his tank all the way up in a while because once the dial hits $80 or $90, he gets so mad he stops fueling. While grocery shopping recently, Shlagel also remarked on high grocery prices, especially for fresh vegetables. The cost of gas means that it’s costing more to transport food to grocery stores, contributing to rising prices in supermarkets.

‘‘What used to cost me $30 now costs me about $50. And that’s just for the basics ... for two people,” she said. By clipping coupons and looking for sales, Shlagel says she saves about ten dollars a trip. ‘‘I definitely think twice about buying something I want but don’t really need.”

The economy’s downturn, topped off by rising fuel prices, is visible daily to most people. Not only are consumers facing the brunt of steadily climbing increases, but so are businesses, which many times are forced to pass increases down to customers.

Gas prices mean Waste Management, which has 26,000 trash trucks nationwide that get about 4 miles to the gallon, have felt a pinch. And that means their customers have, too.

Since the price of fuel has risen about 33 percent over the last few months — 5 percent of which has been just in the last couple of weeks — a fuel charge of about the same rate has been added to customer invoices. WM has 36 routes in Southern Maryland.

‘‘The increased fuel costs have a direct effect on the cost to dispose the local residential garbage due to the increased cost to fuel WM trucks. We do monitor everything with the U.S. Department of Energy. That’s how we determine our increased fuel surcharges that we’ve imposed on our bills,” said Lisa Kardell, Maryland spokeswoman for Waste Management.

Kardell said if the price of fuel goes down, so will the fuel surcharges.

Local restaurants are also feeling fuel frustrations.

‘‘The ways that we’re feeling the pinch is that wholesalers have raised the prices of the items they send us. Their reason for raising the prices is gas and on top of that they’re putting a fuel surcharge on top of all the invoices,” said Rob Plant, owner of Blue Wind Gourmet in California.

The surcharges are anywhere from $1 to $12.

‘‘We have not raised our food prices so it’s affecting our profitability.

‘‘[Prices] have risen between 2 and 10 percent depending on the item and distributor. Beer is highest. There’s been an increase in all farm products, which, in a restaurant, encompasses pretty much everything. Everything including power and water has risen as a result of this, so there’s no way to cut expenses. Of course, employees are paying more money to get to work. We are basically eating the cost of all these things and we hope the loyalty to our customers pays off in the end,” Plant said.

Even small home-based businesses like daycares are depending on stabilized grocery prices to keep their food supply cost efficient and nutritious.

Chris Richardson, owner of the Bike Doctor in Waldorf, said even the price of bicycles is going up because of high increases in the price of raw materials and the fuel it takes to transport the bicycles from across the globe.

‘‘Across the board by fall, you’ll see a 20-percent increase on bikes from last year to this coming year. They trickle down. It’s going to be challenging to try to absorb that ourselves. We’ll try not to pass it all down to the consumer. We’ll probably take a hit to our margin. It’s definitely a hard time,” Richardson said. ‘‘We don’t want to shock the customer.”

He said more people are purchasing bicycles to get from place to place also.

‘‘People are trying to leave their cars,” he said.

Are people really changing their driving habits?

Fuel costs have made Shlagel start combining trips more to waste less gas. She would take Metro to get into Washington, D.C., for work twice a week, but since fare and parking prices went up, she might as well drive.

‘‘You used to not think about it,” she said.

Andrea Fowler of Brandywine said she’s doing the same.

‘‘I couldn’t believe it. It seemed gas had jumped overnight. I think I try to do everything at one time. You really find you look around for what’s cheap. Even three cents difference, you figure hey, as long as I’m already out here,” she said.

Both Shlagel and Fowler said they can only cut down so much because they must drive their cars to get anywhere.

Enrollment at the Southern Maryland Telework Centers in Prince Frederick and Waldorf is up since 2007, when there were 411 people taking advantage of them. Now there are 456, but a General Services Administration spokeswoman who handles the statistics says she’s not sure whether that’s because of fuel prices. Many people enjoy teleworking for the time it saves on the road and increased productivity.

Some businesses are finding that parking their vehicles is the only fix.

‘‘We’re leaving them parked more than they’re working at this point,” said Gail Moreland, office manager for Dale Moreland and Son Excavating in Nanjemoy. ‘‘We’re trying to sell a couple of them because by the time we pay for the fuel and the driver, you’re only making $44 a day. If you’re making a payment on that truck, it’s not worth running it. The dump trucks are going through 82 to 100 gallons for eight hours. Last week it was $4.30 cents for diesel. It was $2.87 at this time last year. It goes up every day.”

And her company isn’t the only one, she says. Some larger companies can take losses by bidding low for jobs, even with fuel increases. But the small ones can’t.

‘‘If it’s a single [independent] truck [company] they can’t provide for their family. It’s so sad because there’s so many of them. I took a drive and saw so many trucks and tractor trailers sitting. We did not see this coming at all,” Moreland, who said she’s written to state representatives on the issue.

Moreland said she and other businesses she’s spoken with hope something is done about fuel soon.

‘‘They’re praying,” she said.