It’s getting harder and harder to find a place to fill up your gas tank in the District and the time you leave for next year’s Memorial Day trip, the problem is likely to be worse.
Gas stations continue to disappear from the District landscape at a rapid pace as real estate developers battle for prime swaths of underdeveloped land and station owners cash out.
Since 2002, the number of gas stations in the District has dropped by 35 percent to 88, according to a recent survey by AAA Mid-Atlantic. The stations are being replaced by everything from shopping centers to hamburger joints.
Along Georgia Avenue in Northwest, Howard University bought the Bison Texaco station in 2003 for $3.6 million to put in a parking lot. An office complex now stands where an Exxon station once served up gas at 13th and L streets in Northwest. You can gobble down Checker’s hamburgers where the Northeast Shell station once stood at 1501 Maryland Ave. in Northeast. The MacArthur Service Station on MacArthur Boulevard in Northwest was purchased for $835,000 and the spot converted into a $4 million shopping center.
The disappearance of gas stations is much more than a simple inconvenience for residents. Several analysts said that fewer stations result in higher prices atthe remaining pumps because of decreased competition. In the District, increases are compounded because of higher city gas taxes and cheaper rates in both Virginia and Maryland.
“It comes down to the cost of doing business,” said Harry Murphy, a director with the Washington, Maryland, Delaware Service Station and Automotive Repair Association. “The rents are so high and the taxes are so high — these guys just can’t compete anymore.”
In the late 1970s, there were 270 gas stations in the District serving a population of 691,500 residents — or one station for every 2,500 residents, according to a D.C. Department of Energy report. By 1990, the number had plummeted to one station for every 4,578 residents. Today, it is estimated there is one station for 6,500 residents.
The lack of stations could also affect the conditions of roads. D.C. Transportation officials said 20 percent of the city’s federal highway dollars come from gas taxes paid in the District. That income stream has been drying up and the city is now forced to seek alternative funding.
