Logan to Downtown Boston: The Free Bus and What Everything Else Costs
The Silver Line SL1 from Logan is free and the Red Line transfer is free too. Verified 2026 MBTA fares, the new two hour transfer rule and where rideshare actually picks up.
Sammie O
The bus from Logan to South Station is free. Not cheap, free. The Silver Line SL1 costs nothing leaving the airport and the transfer to the Red Line at South Station is free too. This page sets out what that gets you, what the alternatives cost, and the fare rule that changed nine days ago, checked against the MBTA, Boston Police and MassDOT in September 2026.
What each option costs
| Option | Price from the airport | Time | Where it goes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Silver Line SL1 | Free | 24 to 32 minutes | South Station and the Seaport |
| Blue Line | 2.40 dollars plus a free shuttle | 6 minutes to State | Downtown, north end |
| Taxi | About 13 dollars to downtown on the meter | Traffic dependent | Your door |
| Logan Express to Back Bay | 3.00 dollars | Not published | Copley and Hynes |
The free bus, and exactly how it works
The MBTA states it plainly. Fares from the airport are always free.
That applies leaving Logan only. Going to the airport you pay the 2.40 dollar subway fare, and even that is free if you are transferring from the Red Line.
The SL1 picks up at every terminal on the arrivals level, in this order: Terminal A, Terminal B stop 1, Terminal B stop 2, Terminal C arrivals, Terminal E arrivals. It then runs through the Ted Williams Tunnel to Silver Line Way, World Trade Center, Courthouse and South Station.
The transfer to the Red Line at South Station is free.
Scheduled running times from Terminal A to South Station, taken from the live timetable, are 24 minutes off peak at 05:30, 28 minutes at 08:06 and 32 minutes at 17:13. To the World Trade Center in the Seaport it is 18 to 21 minutes.
That 24 to 32 minute spread is the traffic penalty, because the SL1 uses the tunnel. It is about a third longer in the evening peak.
The Blue Line, which traffic cannot touch
A free Massport shuttle runs from the terminals to Airport station on the Blue Line. Route 22 serves Terminals A and B plus the Rental Car Center, route 33 serves Terminals C and E. Routes 55, 66 and 88 also reach it.
From Airport station the Blue Line reaches State in 6 minutes and Government Center in 8, and those times are identical at every hour of the day because the line is grade separated.
So the choice is real. The SL1 is free but takes 24 to 32 minutes and degrades at peak. The Blue Line costs 2.40 and needs a shuttle, but its 6 minutes to State never moves.
The fare rule that changed on 1 September 2026
The MBTA started a fare pilot on 1 September 2026 with no published end date. Two things changed.
You now get unlimited transfers within two hours across subway, bus and ferry, paying only the highest fare. That replaces the old two transfer cap. The catch is that you must use the same payment method throughout. Tapping in with a phone and then with a plastic card breaks the chain.
Express bus fares were abolished. Every bus is now 1.70 dollars, down from 4.25 on express routes. The Silver Line is explicitly unaffected.
| Fare | Price |
|---|---|
| Subway, including SL1, SL2 and SL3 | 2.40 dollars |
| Local bus, including SL4 and SL5 | 1.70 dollars |
| Inner harbour ferry, including Logan | 2.40 dollars |
| 1 day LinkPass | 11.00 dollars |
| 7 day LinkPass | 22.50 dollars |
Contactless bank cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay all work on every mode except the Commuter Rail. You cannot buy a monthly pass on one. As a visitor there is no reason to hunt down a plastic CharlieCard.
One trap. Cash is accepted when you board at street level, but a cash fare is not valid for a transfer.
Getting to Cambridge and Back Bay
Cambridge is the SL1 to South Station then the Red Line. Kendall and MIT is 9 minutes from South Station and Central is 13, so allow 33 to 37 minutes from the terminal.
Back Bay has no direct rail from Logan. You either take the SL1 to South Station, the Red Line to Downtown Crossing and the Orange Line to Back Bay, or you take the direct Logan Express bus for 3 dollars.
People board the SL1 for Back Bay and end up doing three legs. The Logan Express is one.
Logan Express
The Back Bay route costs 3 dollars one way and is free on the return leg from the airport. It serves Copley and Hynes.
The suburban routes to Braintree, Framingham, Woburn and Danvers cost 9 dollars, with under 18s free. Suburban parking is 7 dollars a day.
One correction. The Peabody terminal moved to the Liberty Tree Mall in Danvers on 6 August 2024. Guides still saying Peabody are wrong.
Framingham is doing something no other US airport bus does. Since 1 June 2026 it has hosted the first remote TSA terminal in the country. You check bags and clear security 20 miles out, then ride a secure bus airside to Terminals A and C. It is Delta and JetBlue only, the ticket is 9 dollars, hours are 05:30 to 16:00, and the pilot has been extended through March 2027 after more than 10,000 passengers used it.
We could not find published journey times for any Logan Express route.
Taxis
Boston Police publish the tariff. The first seventh of a mile is 2.60 dollars, each additional seventh is 40 cents, which works out at 2.80 a mile. Slow and waiting time is 28 dollars an hour, or about 47 cents a minute, and that is why a rush hour fare climbs.
The tariff also states that the passenger pays a 2.75 dollar toll on all trips from Boston proper to Logan.
Applying the published formula gives roughly 11 dollars to the Seaport, 13 to downtown, 16 to Back Bay, 16 to Kendall and 25 to Harvard. Those are arithmetic from the tariff, before the tunnel toll, waiting time and a tip, not observed fares.
We could not find any official passenger facing Logan taxi departure surcharge. Massport did raise the taxi operator pickup fee to 5.50 dollars, but whether that reaches the meter is undocumented.
Uber and Lyft, which are not consolidated
People assume there is one pickup point. There are two.
- Terminals A, C and E send you to the Central Parking Garage.
- Terminal B sends you to the Terminal B Garage, departures level, Level 2.
Drop offs at the Terminal A, C and E arrivals curb are allowed only between 4am and 11am. Outside that window drop offs go to Central Parking too. Departures curbs are prohibited entirely. There is a curbside exception for accessibility at doors A102, B113 and B105, C106 and E104.
The airport fee rose to 5.50 dollars per pickup and per drop off on 1 July 2025, from 3.25. A 3.25 figure still circulating is the 2019 rate. Taxi pickups were raised to the same 5.50 and limousines to 7.50.
A typical UberX or Lyft to downtown runs about 29 to 32 dollars before surge, which comes from a commercial source rather than an operator.
The boat
Two water options run in 2026, and one of them is not what people expect.
The MBTA Harbor Loop Ferry costs 2.40 dollars and calls at the Logan Airport Ferry Terminal, Lovejoy Wharf for North Station, Central Wharf for the Aquarium and Commonwealth Pier in the Seaport.
It is a commuter shuttle, not an all day service. Morning departures from Logan run 06:45 to 10:40 towards Commonwealth Pier and evening departures 16:40 to 19:25 towards Lovejoy. There is no midday service. A lunchtime arrival has no ferry.
The private Boston Water Taxi runs 08:00 to 20:00 daily with a crossing of about ten minutes. Its fares are published only inside a booking widget and the figures in circulation disagree, from 15 to 20 dollars up to 20 one way and 30 return, so we will not print one.
Reach both docks on the free Massport route 66 shuttle.
The tunnels
Tolls for a two axle car are 1.50 dollars with a Massachusetts E-ZPass and 2.05 by plate, at both the Sumner and Callahan and the Ted Williams. Tolls are charged in both directions.
Note that the taxi tariff’s 2.75 dollar passenger charge matches neither gantry rate. It is a fixed passenger charge rather than the toll itself.
The Sumner Tunnel restoration is finished. It was declared substantially complete on 7 October 2024, ahead of schedule, with five planned closures cancelled. We found no 2026 closures affecting airport traffic. The SL1 and most taxis use the Ted Williams anyway, which was never part of that project.
What we could not confirm
Logan Express journey times on any route. Massport’s own site blocks automated access, so every Massport figure here comes from secondary sources.
Boston Water Taxi fares. Two secondary figures disagree.
Any passenger facing Logan taxi departure surcharge, and the effective date of the Boston taxi tariff, which is not printed on the page.
Car and taxi driving times, normal or at rush hour. The SL1 timetable is the best verifiable proxy, since it runs the same tunnel: 24 minutes off peak, 32 at the evening peak.
The Red Line time to Harvard Square.
Sources
- MBTA, Logan Airport
- MBTA, subway fares
- MBTA, 2026 fall fare pilots
- MBTA, tap and ride
- MBTA, ferry fares
- Boston Police, taxi rates
- EZDriveMA, toll calculator
- Mass.gov, Sumner Tunnel reopening
Sammie O publishes Germ Trips, a travel guide covering hotels, restaurants, airport transfers and chauffeur services. The guides aim for practical detail and a clear recommendation rather than an undifferentiated list. Where a town has no good option, the guides say so and point to the nearest one that does. Guides are AI drafted. A small number have been checked against official listings, and those say so on the page.
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