From the gas pump, rising prices trickle down

It registers every time the Rev. Ray Hampton visits a sick parishioner.

Every time Jerry Frantzis gets a bread shipment for his pizza place.

Every time Robert Walker picks up a fare.

The surge in gas prices has bumped up costs not just for truckers and taxi drivers, but for a spectrum of other occupations, including restaurant owners, florists, and even ministers.

Many, but not all, are relaying the increases to consumers.

The average cost of a gallon of regular unleaded gas locally was $3.18 Monday, according to AAA. That was less than the $3.29 national average. But it was 9 cents higher than the regional average a month ago and 62 cents higher than the average a year ago.

There's not much Hampton, pastor of Surry Baptist Church, can do other than grumble about the oil companies.

He drives 42 miles each way from his Suffolk home to the church in Surry County three times a week. Thursday also is his visitation day, when he logs 140 to 150 miles.

"I'm burning $60 or $70 a week in gas," Hampton said.

Walker, a cab driver with Blue and White Express in Chesapeake, estimates he's spending $100 a week more for gas since last year. "Every time gas prices go up, I get a demotion," he said.

He's compensating for it by working more - 10 to 12 hours a day versus eight hours a day a year ago - and cutting personal expenses. Normally, Walker would have been in Martinsville last weekend watching the NASCAR race. This year, he saw it on TV.

Frantzis, owner of Pembroke Pizza and Pasta in Virginia Beach, said he is facing the increases both ways: He's raised pay for delivery drivers to help offset their gas costs, and he also is being charged more for food deliveries, which he attributes partly to rising fuel prices.

A bread company increased its prices by 15 percent last month, Frantzis said. Another food company last week added a $7-per-delivery fee.

"It's a little frustrating," he said. "The entire buck is being passed down the chain. I'm the last person before the customer, bearing the brunt of it. "

Many businesses have forwarded the extra costs to customers, often in what they call fuel surcharges.

In the past year, Wyatt Transfer Inc., which moves freight containers with diesel trucks, raised its fuel surcharge from 22 percent to 35 percent of its base rate, said Chick Rosemond, vice president of sales and marketing.

Sam Logan, owner of Logan's Towing & Service Inc. in Virginia Beach, said he figures one-third of his budget goes for fuel. The gas increases, he said, "damn near put me out of business" - until he raised his minimum tow price in January by about $10, to $60.

David Moore, president of Two Men and a Truck, a moving company based in Virginia Beach, said he's holding prices steady, though he's paying up to $800 more a week in gas costs since last year.

"The consumers - they're feeling the pinch, too," Moore said. "I certainly don't want to make it tighter on them."

The price of diesel fuel has shot up even faster, going from $2.71 a gallon to $3.90 in the past year in Hampton Roads, according to AAA. That's less than the current average of $3.94 statewide and $4.02 nationally.

The result for some: multimillion-dollar increases in fuel expenses.

Virginia International Terminals spent nearly $5 million on fuel, mostly diesel, from July 2007 to February. That was 34 percent - or $1.26 million - higher than in the same period the previous year, spokesman Joe Harris said.

Hampton Roads Transit also foresees a 34 percent increase in its fuel budget - from $8.3 million this year to $11.1 million in fiscal 2009, spokesman James Toscano said.

Bill Jackson, president of Tidewater Motor Truck Association, said independent truckers have been hit hard. He knows at least four locally that have shut down or reduced their fleets.

The ones most likely to survive, he said, "have significant savings accounts and can live off them until fuel prices stabilize or go down."

Taxi drivers, too, "are literally crying the blues," said Stan Slone, who manages five cab companies, including the one Walker drives for. "They can't make any money. They don't want to go after the short runs because if they have to travel very far at all to get the fare, and then the fare doesn't go very far, they can actually lose money."

Cab fares generally are set by individual cities. Slone said he plans to ask the Virginia Beach City Council for an increase. The council last increased cab fares in February 2006, to $2.25 for the first one-eighth of a mile.

Taxi driver Kevin Kelly also hopes for increases in Norfolk. "Everybody else, not being governed by the city, can raise their rates, while we cannot," he said.

Norfolk's City Council approved a $1-per-trip surcharge in 2005 and the next year incorporated it into the cab rate, which is $2.75 for the first one-seventh of a mile. The last previous increase was in 2000.

There might not be much cab drivers can do to cut down on gas, but others say they've found ways to conserve.

FedEx saved 1.2 million gallons of fuel last year, partly by sending more couriers before and after rush hour and opening "community-based stations" with a smaller radius, spokeswoman Carla Boyd said.

Locally, Greenbrier Florist in Chesapeake is trying to consolidate the twice-a-day deliveries it used to make to each city, owner Jackie Hutcheson said.

Donald Calway, co-owner of Cal'z Pizza, advises drivers to turn off their engines when making deliveries, buy the lowest-grade gas, seal their gas caps tightly - and double-check orders before they leave.

"Make sure if you're taking Pepsis that you've got them," he said. "If you don't, you've got to make the trip twice."

Philip Walzer, (757) 222-3864, phil.walzer@pilotonline.com