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Gas Prices On The Rise As Holiday Travel Approaches

Gerry Broome / AP

More than a million North Carolinians are expected to travel as part of the July 4th holiday, and they'll face higher gas prices.

The price for unleaded gas in the Carolinas has gone up by about 13 cents in the week-and-a-half or so before the holiday travel period.

The Winston-Salem Journal reports that the spike was the largest in the nation during that period. 

Despite the jump, the cost of gas here is still lower than the national average and cheaper than it was on July 4th last year.

AAA Carolinas listed several factors for higher gas prices, including increased demand as the summer driving season began, and the permanent closing of a Philadelphia refinery leading to short-term volume decreases along the East Coast.

In the Triad, the average price is two dollars and fifty-seven cents per gallon. 

The agency estimates that the number of North Carolinians who will drive to the holiday destinations will increase by about four percent over last year.

Paul Garber is a Winston-Salem native and an award-winning reporter who began his journalism career with an internship at The High Point Enterprise in 1993. He has previously worked at The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The News and Record of Greensboro and the Winston-Salem Journal, where he was the newspaper's first full-time multimedia reporter. He won the statewide Media and the Law award in 2000 and has also been recognized for his business, investigative and multimedia reporting. Paul earned a BA from Wake Forest University and has a Master's of Liberal Arts degree from Johns Hopkins University and a Master's of Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in Lewisville.

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