New York City Mayor Eric Adams blasted JAY-Z’s Empire State of Mind while he proudly watched a bulldozer crush a row of mopeds and motorcycles. They were just a few of the 100,000 “ghost vehicles” he claims his administration has removed from the city’s streets. His administration framed destroying unregistered cars, motorcycles, and mopeds as a “quality-of-life” improvement for New Yorkers. But the city’s sudden distaste for vehicles without license plates coincided with its swap to license plate readers for all tolls, including the downtown Manhattan congestion toll.

“When it comes to public safety, we’re not just enforcing the law — we’re literally crushing it. Illegal mopeds and scooters have terrorized pedestrians, and have been used in robberies, shootings, and other crimes. That’s why we’re taking bold action — crushing these illegal vehicles so they can never terrorize a New Yorker again. We’ve already removed more than 100,000 of these illegal vehicles from our streets in the last three years, and we’re making it clear: if you drive an illegal vehicle in this city, you will face the consequences — and so will your ride.”

— NYC Mayor Eric Adams

Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch agreed. “Illegal mopeds and ghost cars aren’t just a quality-of-life issue — they’re a public safety threat,” she said. “We’ve taken more than 100,000 of these vehicles off the streets, and today we’re making sure hundreds of them are never coming back.”

The cleanup was accomplished by a special joint Taskforce bringing together the NYPD and the Department of Sanitation. While many of the vehicles targeted had two wheels, the Taskforce has removed over 38,000 ghost cars.

It was DSNY Acting Commissioner Javier Lojan who said, “New Yorkers don’t care about the bureaucratic red tape that had hampered the removal of abandoned, derelict, and ghost vehicles from their neighborhoods for years — they just want these eyesores gone, and as on so many other issues, this administration is getting it done.”

Follow the money

Adams’ administration has admitted New Yorkers wanted abandoned, derelict, and “ghost” vehicles removed for years. But only now is the city finding the funding to get it done. Why? It might simply be that it is finally more expensive to ignore the problem.

In late 2020, the MTA swapped to “toll by mail,” firing its toll booth operators and installing license plate cameras instead. This paved the way for 2025’s “congestion pricing” toll, in which all vehicles get charged $9 for entering lower Manhattan during rush hour. The MTA bragged it got $48.6 million out of taxi drivers, delivery truck companies, and private vehicle owners with the new toll — in just one month. But things may not be going as smoothly as it claims.

The MTA has made statements indicating it was losing $700 million to $800 million a year, and analysts assumed that was mostly due to bus hoppers and subway turnstile jumpers. Then in late January 2025, the New York Post analyzed data the MTA provided to collection agencies on 40 million unpaid tolls.

The MTA admitted, “About 49% of the billed amounts go unpaid, pending further action such as referral to collection.”

Tolls sent out by mail incur a 30-day late fee of $5. After 60 days, that fee jumps to $50. Then the toll goes to a debt collection agency. But they do not have a ton of luck collecting. The MTA added, “As of 2024, our vendor’s rate of return of all inventory is approximately 8.2%.”

So what is the total that never gets paid — either because a license plate was invisible or the vehicle owner ignored the debt collection agency? From 2021 through 2024, that adds up to $5.1 billion. The MTA said after the lower Manhattan toll goes into effect, that number could surpass $2 billion every year. And that is just the drivers with visible license plates who refuse to pay. New York is adding in even more if you count lost revenue from “ghost cars.”

Ghost cars: ‘terrorizing’ NYC or products of an ‘economic need’

To its credit, the MTA did question whether “toll evasion might be caused by genuine economic need.”

Meanwhile, politicians such as Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) of Staten Island and Brooklyn argued against the Manhattan congestion toll and for stricter enforcement of existing tolls. “Enforce toll and fare beating and punish egregious repeat offenders, not honest hard-working commuters.”

While standing over a pile of vehicle carcasses with swapped license plates, Mayor Adams did not mention rising tolls — just “robberies, shootings, and other crimes.” You can see the moped-crushing video embedded below: