Gov. Hochul and Mayor Adams are slated Tuesday to announce a crackdown on the scourge of so-called ghost cars, vehicles that use missing, modified or counterfeit license plates.
The city and the state have launched a large interagency city-state task force focused on the challenge, according to Hochul’s office.
Ghost cars have been a growing problem in the post-COVID years, and the New York City Police Department has at times been accused of not staging a sufficient effort to take them off the streets.
An interagency effort spanning city and state authorities could give officials more tools to fight the challenge — and to reap money lost when the ghost cars pass through tolls undetected.
License plate coverings and fake or fraudulent plates led to more than $46 million in lost toll revenue for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in 2022, according to a fare evasion report published by the agency last year.
And in December, 44 cars — linked to nearly $1 million in unpaid tolls and fines — were impounded in a toll enforcement blitz on the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, according to officials.
“If you cover your license plate — even with a clear casing — or use fraudulent plates,” MTA Chair Janno Lieber said at the time, “you will pay the price.”
In Tuesday’s announcement, which the MTA brass was set to attend, officials were expected to unveil results from an initial joint task force enforcement action netting more than 70 car seizures.
The announcement, slated for 2 p.m. at Randalls Island, is expected to represent the first public announcement featuring both the mayor and the governor since Hochul introduced a controversial plan to send 750 National Guard soldiers into the city subway system.
Adams did not attend the subway announcement last Wednesday, and some suggested he might have felt slighted after he asked for more state funding for the city Police Department’s efforts to address subway crime.
The mayor’s office said Adams was at a funeral during the subway announcement.
Adams and Hochul, two moderate Democrats, have generally enjoyed a warm public relationship, a sharp reversal from the era of angst between Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio.
