13 of the 15 Cities With Highest Gas Prices Are in California

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Sep 2, 6:49AM EDT

Follow 24/7 Wall St. on Google

This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

Gasoline price taxes and fees, and the lack of refineries, have more than offset the sharp drop of crude, at least throughout most of California. Of the 15 cities in the United States with the highest average price for a gallon of regular, 13 are in California. If lower gas prices can help a recovery in the consumer economy, California has a distinct disadvantage

According to GasBuddy, the price of gas in Los Angeles is $3.555, in Ventura $3.523, in Santa Barbara $3.504 and in Orange County $3.479. In San Diego it is $3.467, in San Bernardino $3.443, Riverside $3.441, Bakersfield $3.370, San Francisco $3.322, Fresno $3.197, Oakland $3.179, Salinas $3.169 and San Jose $3.157. Anchorage has a price of $3.253, while Las Vegas, only a short drive from the California border, has a price of $3.190.

Alaskan drivers suffer from the fact that while the state exports a great amount of crude, it must go hundreds of miles into the continental United States to be refined and then shipped back as gasoline. Among all the states, Alaska has the highest average price for a gallon of regular at $3.345, followed by California at $3.336.

The American Petroleum Institute reports that as of July 1, gas taxes and levees were at the fourth highest level among all states at $0.6075 per gallon.

With gas prices falling well below $2.50 nationwide, and $2 in some cities, many of the nation’s drivers will get annual gas price breaks that could save them hundreds of dollars. In California, gas prices are an economic headwind. Since California has by far the largest number of drivers among all states, consumers lack a critical advantage.

ALSO READ: 10 Cities With the Worst Traffic

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.