Whenever rustics Living In Rockland County, N.Y., want to relieve some of the stress of driving in the New York City area—traffic at the Lincoln Tunnel, bumpy, pot-holed streets—we head for New Jersey to gas up our tanks. When I pull into places such as the Lukoil on Piermont Road in Northvale, N.J., the lower price of gas makes me feel like I’ve just pulled a scam.
On the New Jersey side of the Hudson, I can buy a gallon of regular this week for $3.169, instead of the $3.449 a gallon I would pay at a Gulf station on Highland Avenue in Nyack, N.Y. As it turns out, the difference in the cost of gasoline, and the virtuous sense of thrift that I get from buying in New Jersey, is mostly the result of that state’s low gas tax of only 14.5 cents per gallon. In New York, Connecticut and Pennsylvania, the gas taxes are 44.4, 41.8 and 32.2 cents, respectively.