The average Rio Grande Valley commuter, including students, residents, and visitors, often drives about two dozen miles each day for work purposes – if not further – according to U.S. Census estimates in 2024.
Across the four-county region of Hidalgo, Cameron, Starr, and Willacy, some workers and business owners often drive back and forth with trucks or vans, providing mobile services from construction to home health during the workday.
That could mean upwards of 50 to 100 miles each day. At the Port of Brownsville, truckers faced diesel prices of nearly $7 a gallon on a recent weekday.
For a 16-gallon diesel tank, that’s the difference of roughly $50 to fill up at $3.16 a gallon and closer to $87 to fill up at $5.46 – which was the case in early September.
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Kristen Mosbrucker-Garza
Reporter
Kristen Mosbrucker-Garza is a versatile multimedia news reporter who lives and works along the Texas-Mexico border in Hidalgo County. Mosbrucker-Garza is a news reporter for the Rio Grande Valley Business Journal. During her career she's worked for the McAllen Monitor, San Antonio Business Journal, The Advocate Newspaper in Louisiana, Phoenix New Times, and public media outlets in Baltimore and Philadelphia.
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