WITH POLICY MAKERS The Metropolitan Area Planning Council is leaning toward numerous ways to raise revenue to fund transportation, and on Wednesday it sought to spark debate by analyzing three relatively small initiatives that together would raise between $250 million and $400 million a year.

One of the initiatives proposes higher fees for rideshares; the other two propose a new sales tax on private parking and a new fee for all retail deliveries. Two of the initiatives – higher fees for rideshares and new fees for parcel deliveries – were mentioned by Transport Minister Monica Tibbits-Nutt at an event in April where she spoke about what taxes and fees are being considered by the Healey Government’s Transport Revenue Task Force.

Those comments, which also mentioned tolls at the state’s borders and higher payroll taxes, prompted Gov. Maura Healey to rebuke her secretary and take tolls at the border off the table. She also suggested that she was more concerned with making the state competitive than raising taxes and fees. The task force is expected to complete its report by the end of the year.

In its analysis, the Metropolitan Area Planning Council did not address the policies to raise new transportation revenue. Lizzi Weyant, deputy executive director of the planning council, said the goal was to provide information to the public and the task force. She said the three initiatives would raise only a small portion of the billions of dollars needed for the transportation system of the future and promised a more comprehensive list of revenue measures in September.

Weyant said the reports were not requested by the Healey administration, but the council wants them to be part of the ongoing discussion. “We want these revenue-raising measures to be part of the mix,” she said.

Here is an overview of the three proposals:

Shipping costs for retail

Potential: The Metropolitan Area Planning Council says there are no publicly available estimates of the number of retail and grocery deliveries in Massachusetts. The council estimates there are about 445 million package deliveries and more than 120 million grocery deliveries in Massachusetts annually. And the number of deliveries is growing. Nationally, e-commerce accounts for about 15.6 percent of retail sales; in Massachusetts, it’s 25 percent. All the delivery trucks on the road contribute to congestion and emissions.

What are other states doing? Many states are exploring implementing retail delivery fees, but so far only Colorado and Minnesota have approved them. Colorado charges a 29-cent fee on deliveries, while Minnesota charges a 50-cent fee. Both states exempt some types of deliveries from the fee. Typically, items not subject to state sales tax are exempt, as are groceries and items sold by smaller retailers.

What does MAPC recommend? The council generally favors Colorado’s approach, agreeing on an estimate of 385 million deliveries subject to the retail delivery fee. With a 29-cent fee, Massachusetts would collect $104 million. With a 50-cent fee in Minnesota, total revenue would rise to $192.5 million.

Parking sales tax

Potential: Parking is expensive in Massachusetts’ larger cities. In calculating the impact of a sales tax on parking, the council assumed that half of a municipality’s commercial parking spaces would be occupied for eight hours per day. The average daily rate on which a sales tax would be imposed was $34 in downtown Boston. It was $39 in Cambridge, $12 in Worcester and $23 in Springfield.

What are other states doing? Many cities in other states impose sales taxes on commercial parking. Of the cities surveyed by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, Los Angeles had the lowest at 10 percent and Pittsburgh had the highest at 37.5 percent. In between were New York at 10.4 percent, Washington, DC at 18 percent and Philadelphia at 22.5 percent.

What does MAPC recommend? The council looked at parking sales taxes of 10 percent, 17.5 percent and 25 percent in Boston, Cambridge, Worcester and Springfield. Total revenues for each tax rate were $30 million, $52 million and $74 million, with Boston and Cambridge accounting for about 93 percent of the total. The council said these figures should be considered baseline amounts because there is more parking available outside of these communities that could theoretically be taxed.

Carpooling fees

Potential: The state currently charges Uber and Lyft 20 cents per ride, a fee that has remained unchanged since 2016. In 2023, 78.7 million rideshare trips occurred out of Massachusetts, generating $15.7 million in revenue, according to the state. Covid completely derailed the rideshare industry in 2020, and it still hasn’t fully recovered in terms of rides. Ride counts for 2023 are roughly the same as 2018 and are expected to return to 2019 levels soon.

What are other states doing? According to the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, 39 cities or counties, 20 states and the District of Columbia charge for Uber and Lyft rides. Some, like Massachusetts, charge a flat amount per ride, while others set the fee at a percentage of the cost of the ride. New York City does both. Percentages range from a minimum rate of 1 percent in Alabama to a maximum rate of nearly 9 percent in New York City.

What does MAPC recommend? The council recommends a fee of 6.25 percent of ride costs, which would generate $140 million annually assuming rides return to 2019 levels. The council also recommends a lower fee for shared rides, a surcharge for trips downtown to encourage public transit use and reduce congestion, and an additional surcharge for Uber and Lyft when their drivers travel many miles without picking up passengers on rides.

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