Budget Approved to Enhance High Occupancy Vehicle Use at Boston Logan International Airport

Terminal Curbside Redesign and Next Bus Signs Part of Customer Service and Green Initiatives

BOSTON, 2013-05-17 — /travelprnews.com/ — The Massachusetts Port Authority Board today approved a partial project budget of $4 million to enhance high occupancy vehicle (HOV) use at Boston Logan International Airport and improve customer service with dynamic signage announcing next bus arrival times and re-aligning terminal curb usage to maximize efficiency.

“Some 40 percent of the passengers use HOV to get to or from Logan which makes the airport a national leader in promoting HOV use for passengers to get or from the airport, but we cannot rest on our laurels,’’ said Thomas P. Glynn, Massport CEO. “HOV use is critical because it helps reduce our impact on our neighbors who live next door to the airport, it reduces vehicle emissions, and maximizes the use of the small footprint of land on which the airport sits.’’

A new Rental Car Center will start operating this fall with a unified bus system that will replace more than 90 rental car company buses and Massport shuttle buses with 28 new 60-foot articulated buses. A key element of the partial budget of $4 million approved by the Board today is the fabrication and installation of dynamic messaging signs that provide real-time HOV information, to passengers about buses that will take passengers to the Airport Blue Line T Station, the Rental Car Center; and the Logan Express bus system to four suburban parking lots. Last year, Massport, working with the MBTA, installed countdown signs for the Silver Line at all terminals.

The program will include new way-finding signs directing passengers to HOV ground transportation and enhanced curb allocations for HOV at the arrivals level of all four terminals in time for the opening of the Rental Car Center.

Massport’s promotion of HOV use includes making trips on the Silver Line from the airport to downtown free; promoting the use of Logan Express from the suburban sites in Braintree, Framingham, Woburn and Peabody, by lowering parking and bus fare at peak times, and increasing the daily parking rate at Logan’s Central Parking garage last year from $24 a day to $27 a day.

In other action, the board voted to spend $4 million to design a post-security connection between Terminal E and Terminal C, and a post-security connection between gates 40-42 in Terminal C, with the rest of the terminal. Massport is spending $125 million to connect the two sides of Terminal B post security and is planning to connect all terminals post security in the future.

Boston Logan, 15 minutes from the intersection of Route 128 and I-90 and five minutes from downtown Boston, serves as the gateway to the New England region and offers nonstop service to 72 domestic and 31 international destinations and in 2012 handled 29.3 million passengers. Boston Logan is the Air Line Pilot Association’s Airport of the Year for 2008 because of its commitment to safety. Over the past decade, the airport spent $4.5 billion on a modernization program that includes new terminals, public transportation access, parking facilities, roadways and airport concessions, and has been transformed into a world-class 21st Century facility.  The airport generates $7 billion in total economic impact each year.

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The Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport) owns and operates Boston Logan International Airport, public terminals in the Port of Boston, Hanscom Field and Worcester Regional Airport. Massport is a financially self-sustaining public authority whose premier transportation facilities generate more than $8 billion annually, and enhance and enable economic growth and vitality in New England. No state tax dollars are used to fund operations or capital improvements at Massport facilities.  For more information please visit massport.com.

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