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SP Food Mart on San Pablo Avenue shared the crown of Berkeley\u2019s most expensive gas station in a recent survey. Credit: Alex Gecan for Berkeleyside<\/p>\nSP Food Mart on San Pablo Avenue shared the crown of Berkeley\u2019s most expensive gas station in a recent survey. Credit: Alex Gecan for Berkeleyside<\/p>\n
As the war in Iran sends gas prices soaring worldwide, nearly half of stations in Berkeley are charging at least $6 per gallon for regular fuel.<\/p>\n
Berkeleyside staff fanned out across the city this week to find out just how high prices have risen, and where drivers can go to save.<\/p>\n
We found the average price for a gallon of regular unleaded at 17 stations we visited Monday was $5.92. That\u2019s on par with California\u2019s statewide average of $5.89, according to AAA<\/a>, a price that has risen by $1.25 over the past month, since the United States and Israel launched the bombing campaign against Iran that set off fighting around the region and squeezed global oil supplies<\/a>.<\/p>\n The war has stranded tankers in the Persian Gulf and led to production cuts from major producers in the Middle East. And its effects don\u2019t stop at the gas pump, so electric car owners and non-drivers will hardly be immune: Higher fuel prices are expected to make groceries and other goods more expensive<\/a> as well, and create an overall drag on the economy<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Local drivers seeking relief from the prices \u2014 or as close as they can get to it these days \u2014 will want to head to the corner of Ashby and Shattuck avenues in South Berkeley. They\u2019ll find the city\u2019s cheapest fuel at Berkeley Gas and Smog, where a gallon cost $5.40, 51 cents cheaper than the local average. The deals might not last forever, though: A plan to build an apartment building at the site of Berkeley Gas and Smog was approved last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n Two stations near downtown and in West Berkeley were in a virtual tie for second-cheapest. Gas cost $5.56 at the Valero station at University Avenue and Seventh Street, while #1 Gas at Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Hearst Avenue charged $5.58. (We rounded prices to the nearest cent for simplicity, and used the price stations set for customers who pay with credit or debit cards; you can save 10 cents per gallon at many stations by paying with cash.)<\/p>\n The title of Berkeley\u2019s priciest gas was shared by two stations: the Chevron at University and Sixth Street and SP Food Mart at San Pablo Avenue and Cedar Street each charged $6.40 per gallon. The Chevron station is the first one drivers encounter as they enter Berkeley off of Interstate 80, but someone in the know could save $12.60 on a 15-gallon fill-up if they go to the Valero next door.<\/p>\n Ever wondered how reliable the prices Google Maps lists for gas stations are? We used this survey to put the app to the test, and found it performed fairly well, with 13 stations\u2019 prices reported correctly on Google. But it wasn\u2019t perfect: Prices for two stations were off by 10 and 16 cents apiece, and prices for two other stations \u2014 including one of the city\u2019s cheapest, #1 Gas \u2014 didn\u2019t show up at all on the app.<\/p>\n Alex Gecan, Jacob Simas, Tracey Taylor and the Associated Press contributed reporting.<\/p>\n “*” indicates required fields<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SP Food Mart on San Pablo Avenue shared the crown of Berkeley\u2019s most expensive gas station in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[2465,2466,143,145,144,1967],"class_list":{"0":"post-249386","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-home-highlight","9":"tag-home-lead","10":"tag-oakland","11":"tag-oakland-headlines","12":"tag-oakland-news","13":"tag-transportation"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Valero-gas-station-on-Seventh-and-University-in-West-Berkeley.jpg\")
People fill their cars at the Valero station on University Avenue in West Berkeley, which had Berkeley\u2019s second-cheapest gas. Credit: Tracey Taylor\/Berkeleyside<\/p>\n