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DAVE MASON/NEWS-PRESS PHOTOSRegular gas sells for $5.279 a gallon Sunday at the Fuel Depot station on Fairview Avenue in Goleta.
Gas prices continue to fall across the U.S. and in California, but prices remain up from last year.
Nationally and locally, motorists are approximately paying an average of $1 more per gallon than they did last year.
California, which consistently has seen higher gas prices than the rest of the country, saw an average of $5.37 a gallon Sunday — down from $5.46 one week ago, $5.99 a gallon one month ago but still above $4.40 a gallon a year ago. That’s according to the American Automobile Association.
Santa Barbara County has been slightly above the state average. On Sunday, the average was $5.53 per gallon, down from $5.61 a week ago and $5.99 a month ago.
Regular gas sells for $5.499 a gallon at the Chevron station on Fairview Avenue in Goleta.It wasn’t too hard, though, to find stations below the average, sometimes right next to each other. On Fairview Avenue in Goleta, the Chevron station was selling regular gas Sunday for $5.49 a gallon while the nearby Fuel Depot station was selling it for $5.279 a gallon.
Still, motorists are missing last year’s prices when the average in Santa Barbara County was $4.34 a gallon.
In Ventura County, the average Sunday was $5.44 per gallon, down from $5.55 a gallon one week ago and $6.05 a gallon a month ago. Still, as in Santa Barbara County and everywhere else, the price hasn’t fallen to what people paid last year at the pumps: $4.35 a gallon in Ventura County.
San Luis Obispo County continues to have the highest average for gas prices on the Central Coast. On Sunday, the average was $5.73 a gallon, down from $5.81 one week ago and $6.22 a gallon a month ago. One year ago, the average in San Luis Obispo County was $4.59 a gallon.
Gas prices are dropping faster in at least 10 states than in California. Since last Thursday, the largest decreases, AAA reported, were in Colorado, Arizona, Illinois, Maine, Ohio, Kansas, West Virginia, Wyoming, Arkansas and Indiana. According to AAA, those states saw their average price of gas drop around 20 cents a gallon.
And AAA has reported the national average for gas recently dropped to below $4 a gallon for the first time since March.
On Sunday, the national average was $3.99 a gallon, down from $4.07 a week ago and $4.61 a gallon one month ago.
One year ago, the national average was $3.19 a gallon.
email: dmason@newspress.com
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