Massachusetts transportation officials want to know if adding a fee for picking up or dropping off travelers at Logan Airport could lead to fewer drivers, less congestion and improved air quality. But some transit advocates who want to know how the money raised by a fee might be spent.
After forty years of adding new runways, international flights and other services, Logan Airport’s traffic congestion has quadrupled, according to the Conservation Law Foundation, the group pushing for the new fee on automobiles entering and exiting the airport to give fliers a ride. In a press release on the arrangement they made with the Massachusetts Port Authority to study a new fee, CLF said that making it harder to drive to Logan but easier to take a public transit option would benefit fliers and the environment.
“If they implement the idea and that money is not dedicated to sustainable mobility goals like transit, then all we’re doing really is asking people to pay another toll to subsidize more driving and more highways,” Transit Matters’ Jim Aloisi told WGBH News.
Aloisi, who served as transportation secretary under former Gov. Deval Patrick, said MassPort has done a good job expanding service while avoiding traffic and pollution, but wants revenue from any fee to go toward improving MBTA service to and from the airport.
The idea behind a drop off or pick up fee would be to encourage fliers to use public transit like the MBTA’s Silver and Blue lines by discouraging drivers from crowding the airport. The trick to solving Logan’s traffic woes may be the same goal Gov. Charlie Baker has had since entering office: fix the MBTA so the existing system, including the lines that serve Logan, is reliable and cost-effective.
“Those services are going to need to be funded and if we can do that in a way that’s going to help reduce congestion and help reduce all that traffic that you see at the curbs, that’s a pain for everyone, then it’s definitely something worth exploring and talking about and studying,” Transportation for Massachusetts director Chris Dempsey said.
East Boston state representative Adrian Madaro says the airport’s neighbors are excited to see what results the study finds, but they’re leery of a new cost:
“One of the only benefits that we receive from being the host community is the proximity to the airport. So I certainly think that there are residents in East Boston who are concerned with the thought of a fee being associated with that pickup and dropoff,” Madaro said.
Madaro wants residents of East Boston to be exempted from any new fee, or discounted the way Eastie drivers save on the Boston Harbor tunnels. Residents of East Boston with an E-ZPass pay only $0.20 for access to the two harbor tunnels.
Currently, a trip to Logan from the Mass. Pike costs between $1.50 and $7.45. There is also a $1.50 toll to take the tunnels. Revenues from most of those tolls goes toward upkeep of the Boston area’s highway system.
You can count Baker as a skeptic. His office says the governor will review the study when it’s done in the summer of 2019, but that he doesn’t think a fee is necessary.
