New Yorkers fume over revelation MTA lost $5.1B on unpaid tolls, violations as honest drivers slapped with congestion pricing

This news is taking a toll on honest New Yorkers.

Outrage mounted in the Big Apple Monday after the revelation the MTA lost $5.1 billion in unpaid tolls and fees over four years – while drivers doing the right thing are forced to pay more.

The massive unpaid collections at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s nine bridges and tunnels surpasses the estimated $500 million to $800 million expected to be generated annually from the new $9 first-in-the-nation congestion toll to enter Midtown Manhattan south of 60th Street.

“They can’t even collect their unpaid tolls,” fumed Harry Nespoli, chairman of the 300,000-member NYC Municipal Labor Council and head of the sanitation workers’ union. “So, they’re going to make it up by socking us with congestion pricing.4

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“They should collect from the toll violators,” added Nespoli, who has appealed to President Trump to kill congestion pricing. “Right now, the law-abiding working people are paying for them [the deadbeats].”

MTA figures showed deadbeats racked up $5.1 billion in unpaid MTA tolls and violations such as late fees over four years from 2021 to 2024 — a number likely sent skyrocketing since “cashless” systems replaced the old payment booths, though officials sought to downplay the figures saying it’s not just “toll debt” in the wake of a Post report Sunday.

The authority estimated total uncollected “toll violations” at more than $1.4 billion in 2024 alone and $3.7 billion combined from 2021 through 2023, according to a financial chart included in a request for proposals submitted to potential debt collectors.

The proposal said the annual figure for unpaid toll collections could exceed $2 billion when factoring in the $9 congestion toll — a fee that will rise to $12 in 2028 and $15 in 2031.

Police arresting a person at a license plate checkpoint. Gregory P. Mango

Benjamin Li, 40, from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, who tows a smoothie cart by Zuccotti Park in the Financial District, said authorities should levy the toll evaders instead of socking him and other hard-working New Yorkers with a new congestion toll.

He now arrives into Manhattan at 4:45 a.m. with his cart to pay a lower $2.25 overnight fee and save $6.75 off the $9 toll charged during the peak hours.

“I obey the law, whatever they charge. But I see so many people trying to save money illegally with ghost plates,” Li said.

Long Island truck driver Kenny McCutcheon, 32, was worked up over the news as he was running errands in Manhattan on Monday.

“They need to crack down more on people who don’t pay the tolls, instead of charging the rest of us so much,” said McCutcheon. “I think it’s ridiculous I gotta pay $9 just to come here.”

MTA toll crossings include the Hugh Carey/Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, Queens Midtown Tunnel, Whitestone Bridge, Throgs Neck Bridge, Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, Cross Bay Bridge, Marine Parkway Bridge, Henry Budget Bridge and Robert Kennedy-Triboro Bridge. At six of the major crossings, the toll is $11.19 without E-ZPass and $6.94 with it.

A federal bankruptcy judge told The Post Monday he’s seen cases where debtors reported owing thousands of dollars in unpaid tolls, and questioned whether collections is a priority for the MTA and New York’s political class..

“They’re not skipping one or two tolls. They are abusing the system,” said Kenneth Kirschenbaum, a US Bankruptcy Trustee who hears Chapter 7 Bankruptcy cases in Central Islip, Eastern District.

“That’s not inadvertent. That’s not unintentional. That person doesn’t deserve any pity.”

In one bankruptcy case, one debtor sought forgiveness for owing E-Z Pass New York $9,900, he said. E-ZPass NY covers the MTA crossings as well as tolls on the state Thruway.

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman said the listing of billions in unpaid MTA tolls and violations by scofflaws is another just example of a culture of lawlessness in the Empire State.

“This is what happens when you have a state that doesn’t enforce its laws and people feel they can get away with anything due to the incompetence of leadership in Albany and at the MTA,” Blakeman said.

“Taxpayers are left with the burden of having to close the huge deficits with idiotic programs like congestion pricing which based on the MTA’s track record, most people won’t pay either.”

But the MTA downplayed the figures it presented to debt collectors as part of a bidding process, and said the $5 billion in unpaid toll and fee collections was blown out of proportion.

MTA Bridges and Tunnels president Catherine Sheridan called The Post’s reporting of its own numbers “misleading” and claimed it “grossly overstates our toll losses” — but did not dispute the figures.

“There’s just a lack of understanding that the amount we place with a collections agency is not outstanding debt, it’s not tolls,” Sheridan said at an MTA committee meeting Monday.

“It includes tolls and fees and any other penalties that may apply so the number may appear very large but that is not toll debt,” Sheridan said.

But Sheridan admitted that the use of ghost plates to avoid collection is a challenge.

“Ninety two percent of the people pay, whether that’s by E-ZPass or tolls by mail upfront,” she said. “There’s about 8% who are either unbillable, where we don’t know who they are because they have a ghost plate, or they just don’t pay even after we’ve sent them multiple bills.”

MTA officials on Monday also said it collected $113 million of the $241 million in outstanding tolls in 2023 — or less than half.

Officials also said the agency put in 500 requests for the Department of Motor Vehicles to revoke car registration of toll deadbeats, which is allowed under the law. Transit officials also said they have new authority to impose judgments on toll scofflaws without going to court.