Blas, the owner of two small businesses, said she tries to be organized about her errands in an effort to drive less.
"I do what I have to do for business, but I do try to consolidate. If I have clients in one area, I try to see them at the same time," she said.
Business is off
Mohammed Haflash, who runs the station, said business has dropped at least 30 percent since he took over the station a year ago. One reason: He sees fewer SUVs and trucks barreling down this stretch of York Road leading to the Beltway.
In the span of an hour yesterday, only three SUVs pulled in.
One was a Toyota 4-Runner, driven by Rocky Marcantoni, a 30-year-old martial arts instructor. It cost him $76.42 to put 20 gallons of "power plus" in his tank.
Marcantoni, who lives downtown, said he just returned from Europe and was thinking about buying a scooter to use around the city, but thought it might look a bit "dorky" stateside.
Some drivers, such as Vanessa Fountain, a state lottery worker, say gas prices have inspired them to walk more to run errands. Fountain, who lives in Randallstown, used to drive to Virginia Beach three times each summer to visit her son. This year, her first and only summer trip will be next week.
When the gas prices spiked earlier this year, Simone Rice made drastic changes in her life. Her Ford Taurus became the car for her family of four; her husband's Ford Explorer SUV stayed home.
He works in East Baltimore; she works in Towson. They reworked the day care pickup schedule for their two children. She and her husband take turns keeping the car at work.
Rice would like to be a two-car family again. But she's not ready to gun the Explorer just yet.
"I guess we'll wait a little to see how far it drops," she said.
For other Americans, the recent rise in gas prices has been the push they needed to give mass transit a try.
Jawauna Greene, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Transit Administration, said ridership was up in June on every service it offers, from local buses to the Metro subway to light rail and MARC. The gains have come despite service problems that month on some of its systems - notably MARC and light rail.
"The challenge for us is, as we get people coming on the system, that the service meets their expectations," Greene said. "We just hope they realize the cost-benefits of staying with public transit."
