BOSTON — Uber and Lyft customers are coming to terms with pricey fares to get around as the ride-hailing apps try to entice more drivers on the road.
The companies recently spent big on incentives to address a pandemic-driven labor shortage.
Both are offering one-time signing bonuses for new drivers and other cash perks for completing additional trips.
The companies said despite a recent influx of drivers they need more.
That’s been translating into sky-high prices at certain times and extended wait times.
“I went out in the Financial District the other weekend, and we had to walk all the way home” said Boston resident Dayna Basri. “We couldn’t get an Uber or Lyft, and if we did, the prices were three or four times what I would pay.”
Uber and Lyft got the green light to start surge pricing again in Massachusetts on June 15 when the state of emergency ended.
According to analytics firm Gridwise Inc., Uber and Lyft prices are up 79 percent from pre-pandemic levels in some major U.S. cities.
“While we’ve seen increased reliability across the city, we expect to see elevated levels of surge as we continue to work to get more drivers back on the road,” read a statement from an Uber spokesperson.
“What sucks is they did nothing to protect cab companies so now there’s no cabs,” said Cambridge resident Dan Newman. “I’d had friends stranded at my apartment because it was $80 to get home.”
The executive director of the Boston Independent Drivers Guild told Boston 25 News the incentives from Uber and Lyft are not being offered to all drivers and aren’t necessarily retaining existing drivers.
She described the job as more intense with so few drivers and said current concerns over the Delta variant are keeping some off the road.