MTA’s ‘unbillable’ driver toll: $56M
It’s highway robbery — and the MTA doesn’t even know the culprits.
The authority is down at least $56 million thanks to “unbillable” tolls for which officials cannot find an address to mail the bill, state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli said Thursday.
MTA Bridges and Tunnels was unable to send bills for 6 million crossings from September 2019 to June 2021 — leaving millions of dollars uncollected, the comptroller’s office said in a letter to the MTA after a three-year-old audit of its cashless tolling.
A huge chunk of the lost revenue — $33.9 million — stemmed from the MTA and its vendors not having agreements with other states’ DMVs to access vehicle registration information, particularly for temporary plates.
Another $21.8 million went uncollected because license plates were either too dark, too bright, missing a state name — or just missing altogether. Another $2.9 million went unbilled due to bad image quality.
Ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced plans to remove tollbooths at the MTA’s seven bridges and two tunnels in late 2016.
The system’s flaws have come into sharp focus in recent months. In September, the MTA Inspector General flagged a transit employee who bragged to co-workers about eluding tolls with an obscured license plate and owed $100,000 in tolls and fines.
The NYPD has cracked down on a huge surge in forged paper license plates since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2018, DiNapoli flagged an estimated $2.4 million in unbilled tolls from 2013 to 2017 on the
Henry Hudson Bridge, which was the MTA’s only “cashless” crossing prior to Cuomo’s announcement. The analysis released Thursday indicates that the MTA has likely lost hundreds of millions of dollars because it was unable to bill drivers.
To curb its financial losses, DiNapoli recommended the MTA refine its algorithm for selecting the best quality picture. The authority attempted to comply — but the percentage of unbilled transactions actually went up during the 2019 to 2021 review.
In response, authority spokesman Aaron Donovan said the MTA collects 96.7 percent of tolls owed to it. “Unbillable” transactions were less than 2.5 percent of its $1.7 billion in revenue last year, he said, noting that MTA cops catch toll evaders “daily” and have stepped up prosecutions.
Said DiNapoli in a statement, “It is heartening to see MTA has taken some steps to go after the worst offenders, but it should do so more consistently.”
It is heartening to see MTA has taken some steps to go after the worst offenders, but it should do so more consistently. YS Comptroller Tom DiNapoli (left)