Proposed Massport Price Hike Could Double Fees on Ubers, Lyfts to Logan

Fees on trips to and from Boston Logan International Airport could more than double by 2027, as the Massachusetts Port Authority considers hiking rates on ride-hailing pick-ups and drop-offs at the airport.

At a board committee meeting Feb. 13, Massport, the agency that oversees Logan’s operations, discussed increasing airport fees on ride-booking services like Uber and Lyft from $3.25 to $5.50 this summer, and to $7.50 by July 2027, according to materials obtained by the Boston Globe.

A roundtrip fee of $15 would be the highest in the nation, surpassing airports like Chicago O’Hare International Airport’s $10 roundtrip fee and San Francisco International Airport’s $11 fee.

The proposed increase follows an especially busy year for Logan airport, which saw 43 million passengers in 2024. Nearly 30 percent of those passengers used a ride-hail service for their commute to or from the airport.

Airport traffic is projected to increase even further in 2025, and Massport spokesperson Jennifer B. Mehigan wrote in a statement that the airport needs to “make improvements to all of our ground transportation modes.”

Revenue generated from the fee hikes would be funnelled into infrastructure upgrades, including a new parking garage meant to support the increased traffic.

“Any changes in transportation fees would be intended to fund those investments,” Mehigan wrote in an emailed statement.

The Massport board is expected to vote on the fee increase at its next meeting on March 20.

The proposed rate hike was met with outrage from the state’s two biggest ride-booking companies, Uber and Lyft.

Uber spokesperson Josh Gold wrote in a statement that Massport’s decision not to include the company in fee discussions was a “missed opportunity.”

Gold wrote that ride-hail services were unfairly targeted by the fees because taxis and personal vehicles continue to pay nothing for curb access to the airport.

“This disparity raises serious equity concerns,” Gold said.

Lyft spokesperson CJ Macklin also argued the policy would hurt visitors to the city, as well as driver earnings.

“A $15 roundtrip fee just to go to the airport and back would be an outrageous burden on the people of Boston and its visitors,” he wrote in a statement, adding that price increases amid high inflation would be the “wrong way to go.”

Though the fee would be directly applied to ride-booking companies, consumers — including Harvard students traveling between Logan and campus — would face steeper costs for each ride.

Depending on the time, a one-way trip from Harvard Square to Logan airport could cost as much as $50. And while taking the MBTA is a much cheaper alternative, the trains can be unreliable and trips can take up to an hour.

Complaints about high taxi and ride-share costs prompted the Harvard Undergraduate Association to put $10,000 towards a free shuttle service to Logan airport for students traveling home in December.

Ray A. Mundy, former executive director of the Airport Ground Transport Association, said that fees like those at Logan are important for improving airport infrastructure.

“Parking and travel rules are where the airport makes most of their usable revenue,” Mundy said.

But Shannon E. Liss-Riordan ’90, a Massachusetts employment lawyer who has represented Uber and Lyft drivers in past class action cases against the companies, said the drivers will likely shoulder the heaviest burden from the fee hikes.

“Maybe riders don’t take Uber or Lyft as much, maybe they won’t tip as much if they have these higher fees. There are a lot of concerns,” Liss-Riordan, a former Crimson editor, said.

“I would be much happier with this proposal if Uber and Lyft themselves had to bear this cost, because they’re the ones, really, who have created this congestion issue through their business models,” she added.

Boston has some of the worst traffic in the world, ranking fourth for worst congestion among U.S. cities. According to a 2021 MIT study, ride-hail companies have increased the intensity and duration of congestion, also causing a substantial drop in public transit usage.

Spokespeople for Uber and Lyft did not respond to criticism that they created congestion, but Uber spokesperson Freddi Goldstein said the tax would be detrimental across the board.

“Massport’s tax will hurt riders, drivers and the surrounding communities,” Goldstein wrote. “Riders will be stuck with a $15 bill just for going to the airport, drivers will lose business when riders opt to drive themselves instead and congestion will only get worse.”

But Christopher Dempsey, a partner at urban planning firm Speck Dempsey and former Massachusetts Assistant Secretary of Transportation, said that raising the fees would be a beneficial push toward public transit.

“It makes all the sense in the world for Massport to be trying to incentivize the trips that don’t slow everybody else down — and those tend to be the ones that are buses and trains,” Dempsey said.

Mundy, the former AGTA executive director, said Massport is justified in raising the fee after six years, but said he wished there was a gradual transition.

“I suspect that the airport and maybe its board are saying, ‘Look, it’s time we did catch up. We wish we would have increased their fees by 25 cents a year,’” he said.

In 2017, Massport reviewed a proposal to levy charges on all pick-ups and drop-offs from the Conservation Law Foundation, an environmental group who took issue with the air pollution and congestion caused by Logan. But the transportation authority decided not to move forward with the proposal after intense criticism from passengers.

Dempsey emphasized that despite their unpopularity, fee hikes — even ones targeting all vehicles — may be the best way to solve Logan’s congestion issue.

“From a technocratic perspective, the most effective thing would probably be to have a fee for every vehicle that enters the airport, not just for Uber and Lyft,” Dempsey said. “But I think Massport has determined that that is not politically viable, and so they’re going with the next best option.”

“This is a trade off that Bostonians should be willing to make, and I know that it may not be the popular thing to do, but it’s the right thing for Massport to be thinking about,” he said.

—Staff writer Stephanie Dragoi can be reached at stephanie.dragoi@thecrimson.com.

—Staff writer Thamini Vijeyasingam can be reached at thamini.vijeyasingam@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @vijeyasingam.