Barry operates Corner Brook Courier and is one person for whom the rapid change in fuel prices has had a direct impact on his bottom line. Like everyone else, he had to deal with skyrocketing prices for the past several years. He obviously welcomes the recent relief as the cost of gasoline quickly approaches $1 per litre.
“It’s excellent to see,” he said. “It’s about time because I don’t think it ever should have went up so high in the first place.”
Barry drives a fuel-efficient Toyota Echo for his work around town and tries to keep to a regular schedule of stops to better control how much gas he burns. Still, he puts between 130 and 140 kilometres on his odometer every day he works.
“I just hope it keeps going down,” he said.
Buckle’s Busing is a larger operation, pumping diesel into its fleet of motorcoaches, smaller wheelchair accessible buses and seven-passenger vans that venture all over western Newfoundland. Don Brown, the Corner Brook-based company’s general manager, is also welcoming lower prices with open arms.
“How our business is doing depends on the pricing of fuel, so whenever we can get our costs down, it is great to see,” he said. “It’s also good news for every consumer.”
He’d like to see the prices keep going down until the next busy tourism season.
The cost of fuel can’t get low enough for Star Taxi driver Barry Coish either. He’s been a cabbie in Corner Brook for 29 years and fills up his tank every day.
“That’s $10 more dollars in my pocket every time I fill up now,” he said of the difference in the pump these past few weeks.
Local cab drivers had to raise their rates when the price of gas went up. While some customers may be expecting a drop in fares now, Coish said the tedious process of setting taxi fare rates and the uncertainty of when fuel prices may go back up likely means the rates will stay the same.
“There’s a lot of rigamarole that we have to go through with the City (of Corner Brook) to change the rates,” he noted.
