By Anne Finlay-Stewart

Once upon a time, Owen Sound had the highest number of gas stations per capita in Ontario. Maybe even in Canada. But the "filling station" business just isn't what it used to be, and it is hardly a local phenomenon.

In the past twenty-five years, the number of gas stations has declined almost 40 per cent, from over 20,000 to barely 12,000. The profit per litre at the pump has remained stagnant, environmental safety rules have tightened, and car maintenance services are often delivered elsewhere, at specialty outlets. Big-box stores offering discounts have further squeezed the "corner gas" owners, and the real money now is in the Tim Hortons or other retail offerings. Gas is just the necessity.

Here in town, there remains only one downtown gas station (with an associated convenience store), and the west side is now almost dry with the recent closing of the UPI at 10th St. West and 2nd Ave. The east hill has the remaining UPI at 9th Ave and 11th Street, now also acting as the terminal for the Greyhound bus, and a string of five stations along a kilometre or so of 16th Street.

Some of the ex-gas station properties have been redeveloped, and occasionally an environmental issue arises and some action has to be taken. The Mississauga owners of the former Kirk's station on 6th Street East (think airplane on the roof) had to remove leaking tanks under the parking lot in recent years.

At the time many of the stations were built, no provisions were made in licensing or permitting for the clean-up of land at the end of its years of oil and gas delivery. They have become what are now referred to in planning documents as brownfields. Some sit empty, For Sale signs fading in the sun.

Some are owned by potential developers who are cutting the grass while they wait for better times or a better deal. All of them are a reminder to Owen Sound residents and visitors alike that things are neither what they were, nor perhaps what we wish they could be.

Anne Finlay-Stewart is Community Editor of Owensoundhub.org. She can be reached at [email protected].