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The ripple effect of high gas prices

There’s a lot of talk about the rising gas prices these days. Many of us have had to make some adjustments to our budgets or lifestyles to compensate for the extra money pumped into our gas tanks.

The ever-rising gas prices are starting to cause problems or lead to cut backs that go beyond “some adjustments” like less coffee at Starbucks. Quality of life services are starting to take a hit.

Some very important social service organizations, like Meals on Wheels, are losing volunteers because they can’t afford the gas prices that go along with their volunteer work. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette highlights the problem in this article. I’ve also read stories in the P-G and other publications about donations to food banks declining recently. The theory is that people are spending too much on gas and groceries for their own families to buy extra.

The New York Times just ran this article about how people in rural areas — especially where there is little or no public transportation — are taking the biggest hit when it comes to the high gas prices.

The high gas prices are also affecting how governments are running. (That was an unintentional pun, but still true.)

This past weekend I went out to dinner with my family. On the way to the restaurant my father remarked how high the grass is along a major road in front of some businesses near where they live. “The township used to always keeps this cut and neat looking,” my dad said.

“The township probably can’t afford the gas to keep it cut all the time now,” I said.

Municipalities are struggling to keep within their fuel budgets, especially in the areas of emergency service vehicles, many of which must be on the road or running nearly 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Check out this story in The Beaver County Times that details that very problem. This story focuses on

My dad’s comment reminded me of an article I read about another maintenance-type of work that isn’t getting done in

I swear that I’m not making this up. You can read the whole story here in The Southern. Rising fuel costs and a particularly bad winter of heavy snow and ice removal have caused the state go over budget. Road kill clean-up has fallen by the wayside as a result.

How have you seen the rising gas prices affect your municipality? What changes are being made to compensate for larger-than-usual gas costs?

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