With the struggling economy and a sharp decline in crude-oil prices, gasoline prices in Washington state have fallen dramatically to a low not seen since February 2006.

The average price for a gallon of unleaded self-service gas in the Seattle-Bellevue-Everett area is $2.40 a gallon, a nickel drop in just a week and nearly $2 lower than the record high of $4.35 a gallon in July.

The statewide average is even lower, at $2.35 a gallon. The average in the Spokane area is $2.15, said Janet Ray, spokeswoman for AAA Washington.

"A month ago, gas was $3.49 a gallon," she said.

Gas prices haven't been this low in the state since the end of February 2006, when a gallon cost you $2.35.

There have even been reports that gas was selling for less than $2 at some stations in the Seattle area.

The falling prices have brought a bit of relief — but not enough for Michelle Valeriano, of Lynnwood, to change her newfound frugal ways. She's still buying chicken and ground beef instead of steak, and she and her boyfriend are still car-pooling and taking public transportation whenever possible.

"We used to pay close to $50 every time we pumped our gas. Now, it's $28 to $30 for a full tank, so it's helped tremendously," said the 27-year-old Microsoft employee as she filled up her 2003 Honda Civic at a University District Shell station on Tuesday afternoon.

"But I'd rather err on the side of caution. With the gas prices, there's no security and we don't know if it's going to go up or not. Even though we're saving a bit now, we can use that money for other necessities."

Glen Henderson, a corrections officer, and his wife, Gloria, a teacher, made a rare trip into Seattle to visit the Seattle Art Museum on Tuesday — their first journey into the city from their Marysville home in three months.

"Normally we don't go down I-5 if we don't have to," Glen Henderson said from the 76 Station at Broadway and Roy Street on Seattle's Capitol Hill. But gas prices "are a little more in our comfort zone now that we're not paying a hundred bucks a week between the two cars," he said.

Still, Henderson pumped only $20 worth of gas into his wife's 2005 Nissan Murano before the return trip north, where gas is even cheaper.

"It's about 30 cents a gallon cheaper" in Marysville, he said. "With a 30-cents-a-gallon difference, I'm not going to top off here — I'll do that when we get home."

When gas prices spiked up past $4 a few months ago, bartender Jessie Smith said patrons couldn't stop griping. Interestingly enough, he said, the rapid drop hasn't been a topic of conversation around the bar at Our Place, a Capitol Hill watering hole.

"I'm sure everybody is happy about it," even if they're not talking about the recent drop in the price at the pump, said Smith, 27, of Seattle. Even though his 1989 Oldsmobile Toronado costs a small fortune to fill and only gets about 17 miles to the gallon, "I can't complain," he said. "I got the car for free."

The prices have dropped because the struggling economy has sharply lowered the world's reliance on oil, Ray said.

In fact, worldwide oil prices have dropped 60 percent from the record $147 a barrel in July.

According to Bloomberg News, crude oil fell below $59 a barrel Tuesday for the first time since March 2007, hurt by speculation the International Energy Agency will cut its 2009 forecast for demand because of slowing economic growth.

"Everyone was buying gas when the economy was booming," Ray said. "With the worldwide economy having problems, the demand is significantly less.

"This shows that all parts of the economy have been on a roller coaster," she said. "Part of what pushed up the prices was the robust economy and the demand for fuel."

Nationally, retail gasoline prices dipped for a 17th week since July 4, falling below $2 a gallon in a number of states and approaching $1.50 at some service stations.

The national average for a gallon of gas Tuesday was $2.22, dragged down by the falling price of crude, according to AAA. The average price could be headed to $2 a gallon nationally by year's end, AAA has said.

You may have noticed that gasoline prices in Eastern Washington are often lower than in the Seattle area, and that's because Eastern Washington can buy its gas from refineries in Utah and Alberta, which could have lower prices than the Seattle area, which gets its gas from refineries in Western Washington.

With the high price of gasoline over the past two years, people drove less, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

In August, for example, Americans drove 15 billion fewer miles, or 5.6 percent less, than they did in August 2007 — the largest ever year-to-year decline recorded in a single month, according to the federal Transportation Department.

Over the past 10 months, Americans drove 78 billion fewer miles than they did in the same 10 months the previous year.

Transit ridership, meanwhile, saw an increase of 6.2 percent this summer compared with last summer.

Seattle is among the nation's fastest-growing transit markets. Metro alone provides about 400,000 trips per weekday, up 7 percent from a year ago.

Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.

Susan Gilmore: 206-464-2054 or sgilmore@seattletimes.com; Sara Jean Green: 206-515-5654 or sgreen@seattletimes.com.