Gas prices continue to rise in the Berkshires…how high will they go…

If you drive I'm sure you are very well aware that every time you stop to get gas the price seems to be a tick or two higher than the last time you filled up. Gas prices in the Berkshires and all over the country are going in the wrong direction for consumers.

According to Fortune, the price of gas has tripled in the last year and a half. The price is expected to go even higher before they come back to earth. Fortune attributes the rise in prices to an energy crisis in Europe and Asia as well as an increased demand for petrol in the United States driving the prices up. Last year at this time very few Americans were driving to work and no one was taking long vacation trips during the peak of the pandemic.

According to the AAA, the average price of gas in the Berkshires is $3.17. The national average according to AAA is $3.27. The lowest average price for go-juice in Massachusetts is in Hamden and Bristol counties where the average price of gas today is $3.14 and $3.11 respectively. The further west you travel the higher the cost of gas. If you were in California today you would be paying $4.44 per gallon at the pump.

According to the GasBuddy website, the cheapest price in Berkshire County is the Mobil station on Pittsfield Rd in Lenox where gas is $3.05. BJ’s in Pittsfield gas is listed at $3.07 (with membership) …Gulf station on Main St in Williamstown gas is listed at $3.09.

The Biden administration is taking steps to decrease the country’s dependence on gas seeking to make half of the new cars in the U.S. electric by the end of this decade. The major automakers are backing that plan.

LOOK: See how much gasoline cost the year you started driving

To find out more about how has the price of gas changed throughout the years, Stacker ran the numbers on the cost of a gallon of gasoline for each of the last 84 years. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (released in April 2020), we analyzed the average price for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline from 1976 to 2020 along with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for unleaded regular gasoline from 1937 to 1976, including the absolute and inflation-adjusted prices for each year.

Read on to explore the cost of gas over time and rediscover just how much a gallon was when you first started driving.