HASSO HERING

A perspective from Oregon’s mid-Willamette Valley

South Albany gets a new gas station

Written April 14th, 2023 by Hasso Hering

The prospective new gas station in South Albany looked like this on April 13, 2023.

A bike ride around Albany took me past the corner of Geary Street and Grand Prairie Road on Thursday. Two years ago the city rezoned the southeast corner there to allow a gas station to be built, and now the station looks close to being finished.

Drawings submitted for the land use application in 2021 showed the project to be a Shell station. Actually, though, it will be the second Albany outlet of Space Age Fuel, a Portland-based company.

Except for installation of Space Age signs, the station looked just about ready to open. But the clerk at the U.S. Market there told me the plan is to finish remodeling the store first and then open both the fuel islands and the refurbished store at the same time.

How far away is that? Hard to tell, but it’s probably a matter of a few weeks before motorists can buy gas there. (The convenience store has remained open during the remodeling.)

The Albany area has about a dozen gas stations, from the Millersburg Love’s Travel Stop in the north to a cluster of  stations at the Highway 34 freeway interchange in the south. This one will be the first in South Albany itself.

Another new gas station and U.S. Market combination is on the drawing board. Building permits for this one, northeast of the Knox Butte-Timber Ridge roundabout east if I-5, were applied for in December 2022. According to the city’s on-line records, the permits are pending.

I made this observation before, and I repeat it now: Oregon’s state policy is to phase out combustion vehicles after 2035,  but new fuel stations suggest gasoline will be in demand for a good while after that. (hh)

 

 

 





11 responses to “South Albany gets a new gas station”

  1. khs says:

    Yes, the idea is that new car sales are EVs and current car quality is so good that existing cars will not fully be replaced for another 15-20 years after the EV deadline. In addition, many gas stations will start providing EV outlets. Depending on the time it takes to re-charge batteries, just now it’s good business as people need to wait and will spend time purchasing food and so forth. But with battery improvements 90% full charging might go down to a few minutes.

  2. Ray Kopczynski says:

    “Oregon’s state policy is to phase out combustion vehicles after 2035, but new fuel stations suggest gasoline will be in demand for a good while after that. (hh)”

    That’s belaboring the obvious because it will be at least generation after that date before majority of combustion vehicles will be off the road…

  3. Abe Cee says:

    Cars that are in better shape than Joe Biden are still being driven today. Gasoline will still be in demand for decades to come.

  4. Anony Mouse says:

    Oregon wants to be California, so Albany’s city council should do what Santa Rosa’s city council already did – pass a climate emergency ordinance to permanently ban the construction of new gas stations.

    Government knows what is best for us.

    Blind submission to authority is needed. The Albany Municipal Code should be the vehicle, so to speak.

  5. Hartman says:

    Hasso’s declaration of Oregon’s state policy “to phase out combustion vehicles after 2035, but new fuel stations suggest gasoline will be in demand for a good while after that,” while perhaps a good guess, seems largely out of sync with the wider aspiration of state policy-making.

    It is sophomorically simple to whinge from the sidelines, bemoaning policies that will, given Hasso’s age (please no nasty letter about ageism) never affect him, or myself for that matter. Given this reality, Hering’s “concern” about the future of transportation and the fueling infrastructure required seems like a whole lotta sour grapes.

    It might prove a better use of Hering’s considerable Circle of Influence to opine on more pressing issues. Perhaps a modicum of concern about the continual slaughter of our children by gun-toting freaks, or the continuous lies foisted on the fools of this community who put their faith in FOX News. There are many problems requiring Hasso’s ministration…problems infecting many unthinking Albany residents…problems going unresolved as our Opinion Leaders pretend to be concerned about gas stations.

    • Al Nyman says:

      Your posting is sophomoric! If you watched Fox News you might get the truth but watching CNN, MSNBC, etc. is guaranteed you will be lied to. I have watched these channels and the commentators work for the Democrat party. Don Lemon is an absolute joke.
      Instead of worrying about school shootings (the last one from a trans person), you should hone in on the 100,000 people overdosing and why the Biden admin doesn’t stop the importation of fentanyl to Mexico and then across the border. You should worry about the failure of the American dollar which is coming down the pike and will drive down the standard of living in the US enormously. You should worry about the Biden admin getting us into WWIII which we’re headed for unless they change their foreign policy. I’m sure the Democrat loving commentators on your favorite stations have mention these problems.

  6. Peggy says:

    So for those of you praising EV’s, answer me this, what type of fuel will the mining tools and excavation tools be using? What type of fuel is used in the transportation of mined goods? Where and how are we going to put the USED and dead batteries? This is what those of you who are critical thinkers should be asking. This ignorant idea is going to be a joke. You don’t start with the few on the bottom, you must answer these questions first.

    • Bob Woods says:

      Mining tools are very often run by electricity. I have seen gigantic earth moving shovels at the Black Mesa Coal Mine in Northern Arizona, with a bucket you could park 6 busses in, which was stories high and all electric. Underground mines favor electric compressors to break rock and electric trolly to move ore, for the simple reason that electric motors don’t put out poisonous fumes in confined spaces.

      Trains are diesel-electrics. A diesel engine runs a generator and the electricity drives the train. In Europe and many other places, overhead electric wires run the trains so they don’t use a diesel engine. Just like the MAX system in Portland does.

      As for the batteries, they get recycled. It’s already happening. It expands every year.

      You see Peggy, since you probably spend almost all of your time watching Fox News, you’re the one who is getting lied too. The trial is about to start on all the Fox election lies, and they have been caught red handed. They are on the hook for $1.6 billion in fines/compensation.

  7. Virginia Jordan says:

    With this new gas station, the building of “affordable” apartments taking over the MegaFoods corner and the fiasco developments going in south and east of town, South Albany will soon be referred to as central Albany. Ridiculous!

 

 
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