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Where’s the cheapest gas near Champaign-Urbana?
Consistently, the most affordable gas station in this area is the Road Ranger in Tuscola — and general manager Beth Jamison says she has nothing to complain about.
Jamison doesn’t directly control the prices; she sends data to Road Ranger’s corporate offices twice a day and is told the price for the following day.
“It does make a difference,” Jamison said.
She’s had people drive from places like Charleston and Champaign to fill their tanks.
For reference: the Tuscola Road Ranger was offering regular gas at $3.11 a gallon on Thursday, in an area with an average price of $3.28 a gallon, according to GasBuddy.com. Even 30 miles away in Champaign, the average price was $3.48/gallon.
“I’m more than happy to get their business,” Jamison said.
In Champaign-Urbana, your best choices are Sam’s Club and Costco, each of which were charging $3.19 for regular on Thursday and tend to have lower prices than most places in town. That comes with a bit of a caveat, though, as you have to have a membership to buy it.
Even if the Tuscola Road Ranger is a bit too far to drive, there’s good news on the horizon when it comes to gas prices.
As the weather cools off, prices will too, according to GasBuddy’s Patrick DeHaan.
We’ve already seen national averages fall 38 cents in the month of October, and GasBuddy projects a further 10- to 20-cent drop before the end of the year.
East Central Illinois is hovering around the middle range for prices across the nation, but Monticello and Tuscola residents are in the best shape.
GasBuddy said that the fall in prices is due in part to the change of seasons, since people travel less in colder months and stations have switched over to winter gas.
“The decline in gas prices has been astounding, but not completely surprising as we finally get back to a more typical fall, which in recent years has seen impacts from COVID and Russia’s war on Ukraine disrupting seasonal changes,” said Patrick De Haan, GasBuddy’s head of petroleum analysis.
