Is LI ready to cope with higher gas prices?

Long Island gas prices shot up another 14 cents last week, sending the average price of a gallon of regular unleaded to $3.68.

You do the crazy math: If prices keep rising like this, your gas costs could easily top your car payment by June.

What kind of mileage are you getting from that Hummer, anyway?

Most of this pump-price jumpiness can be traced to the Middle East. My best experts say that if one side doesn't crush the other soon in Libya, we can figure on $4-a-gallon gas on Long Island by Memorial Day.

"If the turmoil spreads to Saudi Arabia," warns Tom Kloza, chief analyst at the Oil Price Information Service, "you'll see people predicting $7 a gallon."

And paying it, too, if past gas crises are any indication.

Not everybody is looking at the latest price spike as a major disaster. At the Long Island Rail Road, no one's done the precise calculations yet. But at week's end, officials were poring over a new study from the American Public Transportation Association. The key conclusion: People who commute by rail instead of driving now save, on average, $825 a month. That's two car payments, if you just need a junker to run to and from the train.

Maybe these higher gas prices will send a few Long Islanders to the railroad station. Maybe it'll goose Kia sales. Maybe it'll even encourage walking and biking and a second look at the coming Long Island Bus cuts.

But probably not. Or not for long.

The last time we were here was the summer of 2008. Prices at Nassau and Suffolk stations hit $4.35 that July.

Everyone was outraged.

And all of us said so.

As we sat in the same old rush-hour traffic jams and lined up with our maxed-out credit cards at the pump.

NFL strike gripes
1. Players don't earn enough.

2. Owners aren't rich enough.

3. Season isn't long enough.

4. Tickets aren't expensive enough.

5. Are  you ready for some football?

Asked and answered. Now that Albany's about to approve more red-light cameras for Nassau County, one obvious question: Why is Albany - not Nassau County - deciding how many red-light cameras Nassau County needs?

. . . After Thursday night's crushing by the Islanders, are Minnesota fans really calling their beloved Wild "the Tame"? . . . Is the Nassau Planning Commission afraid of the dark? Nah, there must be some other explanation for their canceling of night meetings.

. . . Is anyone still trying to downplay the Nassau police's crime-lab fiasco? The mismatched-paperwork news stories have branded the incompetence-or-worse a "quagmire." Is "scandal" next?

. . . The real test for "Am-I-a-total-boat-nut?" Attending both the Long Island Boat Show at the Nassau Coliseum AND the World Fishing and Outdoor Exposition in Suffern this weekend. Those double-dippers are CRAZY!

. . . Why is Nassau so much stingier than Suffolk in helping to pay for Long Island Bus service?

Long Islander of the week -- Robbie Rosen
OK, so he didn't make the finals. Robbie Rosen's swan song, "Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word," could just as easily have come off the lips of "American Idol" judge Randy Jackson, who moaned that cutting the Merrick teen was part of "the toughest night ever."

But finals or not, Robbie is still "the pride of Long Island." Charismatic, poised, clean-cut in a 2011 kind of way, he will be back for more. Much more. As for his premature departure from America's largest stage: Blame us as much as Robbie. He did his job, belting 'em out like no 17-year-old should be able to do. What happened to voter turnout among his "Idol" fans back home?

E-mail ellis@henican.com

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