MTA crackdown nabs 44 toll cheats who owe nearly $1M in fees

Metro

By Mary Kay Linge

An MTA enforcement blitz this week nabbed 44 vehicles owned by persistent toll evaders who owe nearly $1 million worth of unpaid fees and fines, officials said.

“This is about fundamental fairness,” MTA chair Janno Lieber told reporters Friday.

“It’s not right when drivers, some rolling around in Mercedes and Porsches, come onto our bridges and through tunnels and skip out on paying thousands and thousands of dollars in tolls.”

The four-day crackdown at the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge linking Staten Island and Brooklyn led to the seizures of cars and trucks of every description — from a white BMW SUV and a black Mercedes sedan to a garbage truck owned by a private hauler.

“There’s a Range Rover back there and the guy owes 50 grand,” Lieber said.

All the vehicles sported bogus out-of-state license plates that New York’s cashless tolling system cannot track, or legitimate plates disguised by plastic covers that thwart toll cameras.

The 44 accused scofflaws owe the MTA a total of $922,500 — a fraction of the $46 million in revenue that the MTA estimated was lost to toll evasion in 2022.

Some of those snagged in the dragnet were found to be uninsured or driving with a suspended license.

The vehicles were impounded and the cars’ registrations suspended until their owners settle up, officials said.

Law enforcement officers from the MTA, the NYPD, and the New York State Police have interdicted 2,705 vehicles for toll evasion this year – a 50% increase from 2022 — as the transit agency struggles to fill a yawning budget gap that, it says, justifies a controversial new congestion pricing scheme.