California Fuel Squeeze

California drivers are paying nearly $5.90 a gallon on average, and the squeeze is reaching airports, commutes and weekend travel plans. (aaa.com, finance.yahoo.com) AAA listed California’s average regular price at $5.884 on April 24, 2026, versus a national average of $4.059. California diesel was even higher at $7.484 a gallon. (aaa.com) Jet fuel is tightening too. California’s jet fuel stock fell to 2.6 million barrels last week, down from more than 3.5 million barrels last year and the lowest level in about two and a half years, according to a Reuters report published April 24. (finance.yahoo.com) Part of the pressure is structural, not just global. Phillips 66 said in October 2024 that it would cease operations at its Los Angeles-area refinery in the fourth quarter of 2025, and Valero told the California Energy Commission in April 2025 that it intended to cease refining at Benicia by the end of April 2026. (investor.phillips66.com, investorvalero.com) The California Energy Commission’s refinery list, current as of January 26, 2026, shows the Benicia plant at 145,000 barrels per day, or 9.78% of statewide refining capacity. The same state list shows total California refining capacity at 1,483,171 barrels per day. (energy.ca.gov) Higher pump prices are starting to show up in rail counts. A Los Angeles Times analysis found Los Angeles Metro rail ridership reached 6.3 million in March, up from 5.8 million a year earlier, while Bay Area Rapid Transit reached about 5.4 million, up from 4.5 million. (transittalent.com, yahoo.com) Metro said weekday rail ridership in March was up 8.6% from March 2024, a shift the agency said looked more like regular work trips than weekend leisure travel. BART separately posted March 2026 as its highest monthly ridership since 2019. (transittalent.com, bart.gov) The link between gas prices and transit use is real, but not automatic. The Los Angeles Times reported that the 2022 fuel spike after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine did not produce a major local transit surge, and UCLA urban planning professor Michael Manville said getting people out of cars remains difficult even when gasoline gets expensive. (transittalent.com, newsroom.ucla.edu) What looks different now is that the fuel squeeze is hitting both household driving budgets and aviation fuel supplies at the same time, while California is operating with less refining slack than it had a year ago. For riders, that has made trains a cheaper substitute for some work trips, event trips and short outings linked to stations instead of parking lots. (aaa.com, finance.yahoo.com, transittalent.com) For now, the clearest number is still the one on the station sign: $5.884 statewide on April 24. As long as that price stays near six dollars, California’s transit agencies will keep testing whether pain at the pump can translate into riders on the platform. (aaa.com, transittalent.com)