Driving in the Bay Area Is Essential for Many. It’s Only Gotten More Expensive

This story is part of How We Get By, a KQED series exploring how people are coping with rising costs in the Bay Area and California. Find the full series here.

Running late between work and school, Naomi Rodriguez pulled her blue 2000 Nissan Quest minivan into one of the most expensive gas stations in the United States.

Located in San Francisco’s SoMA neighborhood, the gas station is a last chance for commuters like Rodriguez to fill up before heading east on the Bay Bridge. During the afternoon rush hour in early April, the marquee of the Shell station displayed $6.80 for a gallon of regular gas, about $3 higher than the national average.

Rodriguez paid $17 for around two and a half gallons, just enough to make it across the bridge.

“ The gas is making it impossible to even survive,” said Rodriguez, a 32-year-old student who graduated with a degree in political science from UC Berkeley last May and is working on a separate degree there in legal studies. “ I can’t even focus on putting my money toward getting a place for myself.”

The Bay Area and California have long had some of the country’s highest gas prices, and they’ve soared in recent weeks, driven in part by the war with Iran. But sky-high gas prices are only one piece of a broader surge in driving costs that is reshaping life in the Bay Area, where residents already endure grueling, car-dependent commutes.

Rising vehicle prices, insurance, maintenance and loan payments are forcing many drivers to make stark tradeoffs — stretching budgets, delaying major purchases or abandoning car ownership altogether.

The total expense of owning a car rose 40% from January 2020 to August 2025, with the sharpest increases associated with insurance, gasoline and repair costs, according to an index from Navy Federal Credit Union. In 2025, the average cost to own and operate a new car in the U.S. was $11,577, or nearly $965 a month, according to AAA.

“ The affordability crisis for cars right now is fairly intense,” said Jessica Caldwell, assistant vice president of insights at Edmunds, an automotive analytics company.

The outer reaches of the Bay Area have long had some of the country’s highest populations of super commuters, people who travel more than 90 minutes one-way. Contra Costa County residents had the longest commutes, averaging over 40 minutes by car or more than an hour on public transit, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

Low-income workers may be more affected by sudden spikes in transportation costs, said Michael Anderson, who researches transportation economics at UC Berkeley. He explained that people with low-income jobs are more likely to be required to work in person and outside of normal business hours, when public transportation is unavailable, forcing them to drive more.

For Rodriguez, the rising price of driving means she can’t save for other necessities, like housing.

She and her daughter had to move out of on-campus family housing in February and have since been living with friends in Albany, Walnut Creek and Oakland, while Rodriguez commutes into San Francisco for work at a social justice nonprofit.

“If you can’t make it to places on time, you lose everything. I can’t lose my job. I can’t not finish school,” Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez said her own car is having trouble, and the minivan she pulled into the station is on loan from a friend. If she went shopping for a replacement, she’d likely find a market geared toward selling her something less than ideal for a penny-pinched Bay Area commuter.

Bigger, more expensive cars

People shopping for a budget-friendly new car or truck don’t have a lot of options in today’s market, increasing costs across the entire auto industry, Caldwell said.

“ Cars are expensive because Americans want bigger vehicles with more amenities and more features, and automakers are happy to produce them because they make more money on them,” she said.

The number of vehicles priced at $60,000 or more has almost doubled since 2017, from 61 to 117, according to Sean Tucker, the managing editor at Kelley Blue Book. Meanwhile, the number of models priced at $25,000 or under has dropped from 36 to four, Tucker said.

The average age of a vehicle on American roads is now nearly 13 years old, a figure that has steadily increased since from almost 9 years in 2020, according to Kelley Blue Book and the U.S. Department of Transportation. Caldwell said this has, in part, led to shrinking inventory in the used car market, making it harder for used car shoppers to find a deal.

For Bay Area drivers seeking shelter from the volatility of fuel prices, Tucker said a flood of lightly-used electric vehicles has hit the market, as three-year EV leases are running out for people who took advantage of a federal government tax credit. (Until last year, the federal government offered up to $7,500.)

Higher prices for new cars and trucks are driving up insurance rates, repair costs and the length of auto loans.

“ It used to be that if you and I were in a fender bender, we needed a new bumper. Now we need a new bumper, a new radar, a new lidar, and two new cameras. We’re seeing even minor accidents are now costing $10,000,” he said.

Insurance rates nationwide are up 12% on average annually over the past five years, according to Cox Automotive, a technology services company for the automotive industry.

The average cost of full coverage auto insurance in California is $3,119 per year — or 16% more than the national average — and people in dense cities like San Francisco pay significantly more than the state average, according to Bankrate, a financial planning website.

Additionally, drivers who opt for more expensive cars, or who have a tight budget, may decide to finance their purchase with auto loans over a longer period of time to reduce monthly payments, even if it means they will pay more interest overall, Caldwell said.

“ Right or wrong, when most people think about the price of their vehicle, they’re looking at the monthly payment,” she said. “If the average is 70, it’s not unusual to have a loan term of 84 months.”

As of March, buyers financing a new vehicle at an average 7% annual percentage rate over about 70 months would pay roughly $10,000 in interest, Caldwell said. For used cars, the average APR was higher, at 11% in March, Caldwell said.

Calculating the cost

As costs associated with cars rise, drivers are keeping their vehicles on the road for longer, driving less or changing how they get around.

Erin Rabourn relies on her 2006 Toyota Highlander Hybrid to get her 11-year-old son to school, soccer practice and friend hangouts. The family moved from South Berkeley to Richmond in 2023, when she and her husband bought a home after years of saving.

“ We can’t be without a car. I can’t e-bike him from Richmond to South Berkeley. It’s not gonna happen,” she said.

Rabourn said her car needs its 120,000-mile service and a new hybrid battery, and that her mechanic estimated it would cost $10,000 to keep it on the road over the next few years, suggesting it may be time to invest in a new vehicle.

But Rabourn said she’s leaning toward keeping the Highlander, given the state of the market. Comparable SUVs, like a 2023 Toyota Rav4, would cost between $29,000 and $45,000, according to Kelley Blue Book, not to mention insurance and loan payments.

As maintenance costs on his 2011 Volkswagen Jetta grew, Albert Flynn DeSilver decided he had had enough. The resident of Woodacre in Marin County sold his car last year and now gets around on a Class 1 e-bike, though he still keeps a 2017 Honda Fit “mostly sitting in the driveway” for when he or his wife needs a car.

“It became too much. I realized I could be saving thousands of dollars every year by just letting go of that car,” DeSilver said, estimating he saves between $3,000 and $5,000 a year. DeSilver commutes eight miles to a coworking space in San Rafael, where he works as a publisher — a journey that takes him around 40 minutes.

For Shekinah Samaya-Thomas, 61, of East Oakland, the cost of driving is a matter of survival. On a recent March afternoon, she waited in line with other Bay Area drivers at a Costco gas station in San Leandro, where regular was $5.19 for a gallon.

“ Every time I have to put an extra $25 or $30 into our car, that’s money I don’t have for food, utility bills, retirement or savings,” she said.

Samaya-Thomas, a substitute adult educator, described herself and her husband, who works in security, as “very much under-employed.”

She said they have both been searching for full-time work for years. Combined, they made just $34,000 last year, and low housing costs through a partnership with the Oakland Community Land Trust are what keep them from becoming homeless, she said.

Samaya-Thomas said when she drives, she bundles her errands into one trip to save.

“ Driving is reserved for getting to and from work and getting our basic needs met. I don’t see friends. I don’t go out. I don’t do social things,” Samaya-Thomas said.

When she or her husband, who share a 2016 Toyota Prius, are offered job opportunities, she said the first consideration is the logistics of showing up.

“There are some substitute opportunities that are just too far away from me to feel like I can drive to them with gas prices the way they are,” Samaya-Thomas said.

Other times, she said her husband has been unable to take a job because it required showing up at 6 a.m. on a weekend, before BART service begins.

Waiting to pump her gas at Costco, she said the line was longer than usual.

“It’s a constant calculation trying to manage all this. It’s emotionally and physically exhausting, and it’s not easy on a marriage either,” she said, gripping her faded Mickey Mouse steering wheel cover, a reminder of her happy place.

Faced with rising transportation costs and what she described as an already “bare bones” lifestyle, she said if prices kept rising, she’d be forced to cut one of the few things left that bring her and her husband joy: their streaming subscriptions.

“Other than that, I don’t know what’s left to cut,” she said.