I've been noting the price of gas in colubus was lower that that of New England last year, but seemed higher this year. I still don't know why, but here is confirmation of that:
Looking at this chart you can see the Boston gas prices in red, the national average in green/grey and Columbus in blue. You see the Columbus price this time last year was about $2.20/gal and the price here was $2.60. The Columbus prices were lower and the NE and National average were dipping down at that time. Then for about 2 months they were close to even, then in January Columbus dropped down to as low as $1.95. 2 weeks later it was $2.25, and higher than NE and the NA. They stayed the same until April, with NE prices the lowest. The high water mark was May 20th when Columbus was $3.50, the NA was $3.30 and NE was a little over $3.00.
The Columbus price has spiked quite a bit while the NE and NA have been relatively consistant in rising and falling. Columbus prices spiked again to $3.18 July 10th, then dropped below us, going to $2.50 late July, but has now gone up higher again, to $2.90. Meanwhile we are paying about $2.55/gal.
So I guess the real question is, why does Ohio gas prices spike so much. They seem to react very violently to trends while other states' gas prices react, but do so gradually. Chicago for instance has been even more expensive these past 6 months. When Columbus gas peaked at $3.50, Chicago peaked at $3.70. They are still paying about $3.10/gal.
This chart was created by
http://www.gasbuddy.com/
