S.F. on verge of $4-per-gallon gas SIGN OF THE TIMES: San Francisco on verge of becoming first big city to hit that average

Sign of the Times: San Francisco on verge of becoming first big city to hit $4-per-gallon gas. Chronicle Illustration Sign of the Times: San Francisco on verge of becoming first big city to hit $4-per-gallon gas. Chronicle Illustration Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close S.F. on verge of $4-per-gallon gas 1 / 8 Back to Gallery

The age of $4 gasoline has arrived. And it's forcing Bay Area residents to change the way they live.

Sometime in the coming week, San Francisco is expected to become America's first major city to pay an average of $4 for a gallon of regular gas. The citywide average, tracked by the AAA auto club, stood at $3.96 on Thursday.

It's the latest milestone in a four-year run-up at the pump, fueled by crude oil prices that have climbed to their highest levels ever.

When gas prices began their current climb in early 2004, the run-up looked more like a nuisance than anything else, costing commuters an extra $5 to $10 per week. Now, the amount drivers pay to fill up has doubled, and it's enough to hurt.

In response, drivers in the Bay Area and elsewhere are re-examining the ways they live, work and shop. Some longtime car commuters have switched to BART, Caltrain or Muni. Others have ditched one of their family cars, traded in their gas-hog for a compact or - in the case of a determined few - said goodbye to the automobile altogether.

They have turned to telecommuting and combining all their weekly errands into a single outing. And the results are measurable.

Gasoline sales in California have fallen for two years in a row, according to state data. Mass transit ridership is rising in the Bay Area, while traffic on the region's toll bridges has shrunk.

"I think the temporary response to the price shock is past," said Rod Diridon, head of the Mineta Transportation Institute at San Jose State University. "People are beginning to move to different habits now. There are a lot of people looking for a permanent way to cut back on gas."

Cutting back on luxuries

Not everyone can. For those people, escalating prices have forced a different kind of change. They're finding ways to spend less on other parts of the monthly budget.

"It's the luxuries we all have - it's movies, dinners, stuff like that," said Michael Feeley, a landscaper who lives with his wife in Berkeley. "We don't actually sit down and say we've got to cut something out, but we're definitely more frugal."

Feeley used to spend less than $200 per month on gas for his Toyota Tacoma truck, which he uses to haul employees, equipment and supplies to job sites. Now he pays $500.

"When people say everyone's driving a gas-guzzler, well, some of us don't have a choice," Feeley said. "I can't run this business driving a Prius."

Many people, however, do have a choice.

The Bay Area, unlike much of the country, has a well-developed web of mass transit lines, linking cities via bus, ferry, subway and train. Their ridership is booming - particularly on regional systems such as BART and Caltrain that are heavily patronized by commuters.

BART has seen a 6.7 percent increase in the number of passengers through this week compared with the same period a year earlier, said BART spokesman Linton Johnson. Average weekday ridership is at 365,463, with riders taking almost 23,000 more trips on BART each weekday than they did a year earlier.

Bill Buehlman, who lives in San Francisco and works for the city's Homeless Outreach Team, has started relying on BART and Muni to commute and get around town. He estimates he's cut his driving from about 1,000 miles per month to 500 miles.

While Buehlman said he despises the oil companies, he's grateful that soaring gas prices are prompting him and others to reduce the amount they drive.

"I look at it as a gift, a blessing," he said. "The profiteers are giving us the opportunity to make a decision to do something better for our planet, for our community."

Mary Ann Buggs, who lives in Berkeley and works near San Francisco's AT&T Park, switched to BART and Muni after years of driving across the Bay Bridge. So did her husband. But she's a reluctant convert to transit.

"I'm not particularly enjoying it," she said, "because Berkeley to SoMa by the ballpark is expensive (in transit fares) and nowhere near as comfortable as a car ride. But it is cheaper than spending $60 twice a week in gas station excursions."

Buggs and her husband are among a growing number of people avoiding the bridge.

According to the Bay Area Toll Authority, the number of drivers crossing the region's seven state-owned toll bridges this fiscal year has dropped 2 percent compared with the previous year. Six of the bridges have seen falling traffic counts - from a 1 percent decline at the Bay and Dumbarton bridges to 4 percent at the Antioch and Carquinez bridges. Only the Benicia-Martinez Bridge, which received a new three-lane span last fall, has seen an increase in traffic.

While some people rely more on mass transit to avoid high gas prices, others have gotten rid of their least-efficient cars.

For Kim Howard and her husband, Edison Peinado, that meant selling their Jeep Cherokee. The sport utility vehicle got 11 miles per gallon in city driving - not good considering the couple lives north of the Golden Gate Park Panhandle in the middle of San Francisco.

Now Peinado, a pilot with SkyWest Airlines, takes BART to and from the airport when he can. Otherwise, he and Howard must split the use of their one remaining car, a 12-year-old Audi.

It's a juggling act. Howard drives to Campbell for her job as marketing director for the Infonetics tech-industry research firm, but she's able to telecommute much of the time. Peinado gets the car when his return flight to San Francisco arrives too late at night for BART.

"It was more painful in the beginning, but we're getting used to it," Howard said. "It's like most things - you adapt."

She says the change is worth it, both to save money and help the environment. But it's a trade-off, with the couple sacrificing convenience to make it work.

Trying telecommuting

Like Howard, many Bay Area residents have tried telecommuting as gas prices rise.

Barbara Heninger manages a team of technical writers at the Synopsys software firm, with five writers in Sunnyvale and three in India. One of her local employees lives in Santa Cruz and comes to the office once a week. Another, who lives in San Jose, averages three days in the office each week. They work from home the rest of the time.

"This last year or two has been the first when employees cited concerns about the environment and commute costs as some of the reasons for working at home," Heninger said. The arrangement works, she says, as long as telecommuters make a point of communicating regularly with their co-workers.

If gas prices keep rising, she said, she expects more people to try telecommuting. "It will either be that, or people will really start considering how far away they want to live from where they work," said Heninger, who lives in Los Altos. "When I started in the tech industry, it wasn't that unusual to have people commuting here from Danville, because they wanted the big house on the hill."

Still, there remain people who have to drive for work. In some cases, they must drive a lot.

San Francisco cab driver Jorge Perez now spends about $50 per day on gasoline. In addition, he has to pay $100 per day to lease his cab, he said.

"What happens on top of that is what I make for the day," he said. "Sometimes it's difficult to make that much."

It doesn't help that Perez drives a Ford Crown Victoria, which gets about 15 miles per gallon. "They're good cars for the hills of San Francisco," he said, "but they aren't known for their fuel efficiency."