Vasquez said he stopped at the station because he was \u201cliterally out of gas.\u201d <\/p>\n
A nearby BP station, at 1647 N. LaSalle Drive, also had a gallon of regular gas priced at $5.80. The two stations in Old Town are right off DuSable Lake Shore Drive.<\/p>\n
GasBuddy data showed only one station in Chicago had a higher price \u2014 a Marathon near Fulton Market, where the price this week hit $6.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, Lord, there\u2019s nothing else to say about gas prices,\u201d Reggie Russell, 40, said at the BP station. <\/p>\n
Russell, an Uber driver, normally heads to Indiana to find cheaper gas. Prices there Thursday were an average of $3.38, according to GasBuddy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter where in Indiana you go,\u201d he said. \u201cAs long as you go to Indiana, it\u2019s good.\u201d<\/p>\n
It used to take about $20 to fill up his Dodge Caravan, but now it\u2019s double that, he said.<\/p>\n
Fueling up isn\u2019t going to make Lia Montelongo lose any sleep.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really don\u2019t care about the gas prices,\u201d said Montelongo, 51, an actor and fitness instructor for Equinox, as she filled the tank of her 2020 Jeep . \u201cI notice the higher prices, but I don\u2019t care. I have to drive so it\u2019s like I\u2019ve got to just suit up and show up.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only reason why I do stop here is because it\u2019s on my way to get home,\u201d said Montelongo, who lives in Mokena and fills up a couple times a week. \u201cIt\u2019s like I know I\u2019m safe. I\u2019m gonna jump on the Lake Shore Drive and go home.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n Lia Montelongo stops at a Shell gas station in Old Town, whose price is one of the highest in Chicago at $5.79 a gallon for regular gas.<\/p>\n Rising gas prices pushed inflation to its highest level in three years last month. The consumer price index rose 4.2% in May compared to a year earlier, up from 3.8% in April and the third straight increase, the U.S. Labor Department said Wednesday. On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.5% last month, compared to 0.6% in April and 0.9% in March.<\/p>\n Gas prices rose in May because of Iran\u2019s closing of the Strait of Hormuz, which has choked off about one-fifth of the world\u2019s oil supply. <\/p>\n Nationally, prices are at $4.08, up 96 cents from last year\u2019s average of $3.12. But they\u2019ve fallen about 42 cents from last month\u2019s average of $4.50, according to GasBuddy. <\/p>\n With more expensive diesel fuel<\/a> pushing up shipping costs, companies like UPS and FedEx have added fuel surcharges in the past couple of months. That is likely to lead to higher grocery prices, which jumped 0.7% in April and are 2.9% higher than a year ago.<\/p>\n In Chicago, a check of 35 common grocery items last week at four stores found prices ticking up everywhere, especially at Walmart, which previously had held the line on many of the items the Chicago Sun-Times has been tracking for more than a year<\/a>.<\/p>\n Between Feb. 3 \u2014 about three weeks before the United States and Israel\u2019s attack on Iran \u2014 and June 2, the price of 15 items rose at Walmart. This included milk, butter, vegetables, meats, including ground beef, bacon, hot dogs and chicken nuggets, as well as coffee, orange juice, Oreo cookies and peanut M&M\u2019s. Only two of the items, an avocado and Garnier Fructis shampoo, dropped in price.<\/p>\n At Target, the prices for 11 items were up, and five were down. Those up in price included milk, butter, onions, avocado, romaine lettuce, bacon and hot dogs.<\/p>\n The prices of six items increased at Jewel while one, Degree men\u2019s antiperspirant, dropped. At Mariano\u2019s, seven items were up in price and seven down.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A shopper buys frozen vegetables in a grocery store in Wicker Park.<\/p>\n Pat Nabong\/Sun-Times file<\/p>\n Across the four stores, milk, romaine lettuce and chicken nuggets saw the most widespread increases, with each rising in price at three stores in the past three months. Most increases were around 50 cents.<\/p>\n Ground beef, bacon, hot dogs, butter, ice cream, avocado, onions, peanut M&Ms, Kraft macaroni and cheese and Cascade dish detergent each were up at two stores, with increases varying by store and product. Many price jumps were around 50 cents or 60 cents, which for a package of Nathan\u2019s Famous bun-length hot dogs amounted to a 10% increase.<\/p>\n Previously, some of the biggest price jumps seen at Chicago-area stores were for ground beef and coffee, both which remain high this month.<\/p>\n The increases in food prices are on top of price hikes that have occurred since the November 2024 election and can be attributed to a number of factors, including sweeping tariffs, drought, and more recently, the Iran war.<\/p>\n Prices surged after the Iran war made oil and gas more expensive, affecting everything from the cost of fertilizer to transportation. <\/p>\n Illinois gas prices are often higher than the national average because it has the second-highest taxes on gas in the country, according to Illinois Policy. Five states, including Illinois, have a motor fuel tax. Revenue from that tax helps maintain and build Illinois roads .<\/p>\n The annual gas tax hike that would have taken effect July 1 will be suspended for six months, due to families facing \u201chigher costs driven by economic uncertainty and rising energy prices,\u201d Gov. JB Pritzker\u2019s office said June 1.<\/p>\n Gas stations, which are often independently owned, typically price fuel based on how much it would cost to replace it or how much the next shipment of fuel will cost, according to the National Association of Convenience Stores. And within reason, retailers can set fuel prices themselves, but Chicago drivers can report suspected price gouging<\/a> to the city\u2019s Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection.<\/p>\n Contributing: AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alejandro Vasquez was filling up his Toyota Prius Thursday morning at one of the priciest gas stations in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":490568,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[114,184,85,46],"class_list":["post-490567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Lia](\"https:\/\/cst.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/ef6b0c5\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/6000x4000+0+0\/resize\/840x560!\/quality\/90\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fchorus-production-cst-web.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com%2Fbrightspot%2Fae%2F6e%2Feb14277e4737bf7f378671cd944f%2Fimg-3972.JPG\")
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