WTF! GAS COST MORE THAN MILK IN NY!

The rising cost of a gallon of gas topped $4 statewide on Sunday, making gasoline pricier than milk and forcing New Yorkers to start changing their routines.

"I used to drive everywhere - now just on the weekends and special occasions, " said Roger Levoille, 41, who used to drive his kids to school in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

"I can spend $80 easily on gas a week. That's a lot of money I don't have," he said. "Now I pay one of those minibuses to take my children to school - just $8 a week. I don't want to even touch my car these days."

New York became the sixth state to average $4 a gallon, joining Alaska, California, Connecticut, Hawaii and Illinois, according to AAA.

The national average, which has been rising sharply for a month, now stands at $3.83 a gallon. The average price in the city was $4.08, according to GasBuddy.com, with a top of $4.66 at the Mobil station on 10th Ave. in the Meatpacking District.

Milk cost $3.64 per gallon in city supermarkets when the state last did a survey in December.

At the Mobil station on W. 30th St. in Manhattan, Kevin Williams of Brooklyn cringed next to his 2005 Mercedes-Benz as he watched the pump tick past $80.

"I like my car, but I'm thinking it's not worth it. I'm going to sell it," said Williams, 30. "I either have a car or I go out. You can't do both."

Alberto Ramirez, 18, a St. John's University freshman from Queens, put a scant few gallons of $4.29-a-gallon gas into his Honda Accord, which was on empty.

He said he got "just enough to get home" and thought he'd have to start taking the train.

Greyhound driver Keith Spriggs of Baltimore spent $499.73 to fill his bus.

"I got two cars at home, and I went out and bought a moped," he said, adding that $10 worth of gas lasts him several days now.

Several motorists in Manhattan said they travel to New Jersey, Brooklyn or Queens to get better deals.

And elsewhere, others are just doing without.

"I'm trying to drive a lot less," said Hava Hubi, 31, a warehouse manager from Little Falls, N.J., who said she now car-pools to New York and takes public transport when she can.

Karen Morris, 42, who was filling up at a BP station in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, said she buys just $5 to $10 worth of gas at a time, to minimize the pain in her pocket.

"It's ridiculous," she said. "You see gas prices going up; you just don't see them go down. It's hard."

The record high in the city, set just before the financial crash sent demand plummeting, was an average of $4.39 in July 2008.

Based on continued turmoil in the Middle East and an increasingly ravenous appetite from India and China for oil, experts predict 2008 prices will soon look quaint.


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