Transit & Streets Data retrieved 2026-07-16

Traffic on MTA bridges and tunnels

Name: Annual vehicle crossings on MTA bridges and tunnels
Creator: Metropolitan Transportation Authority, via data.ny.gov

Paid vehicle crossings on the MTA's seven bridges and two tunnels, year by year.

337.3 million

vehicle crossings in 2024

A record for the series. Traffic dipped to 253.2 million crossings in 2020, then passed its old ceiling within four years.

Source: MTA Monthly Ridership / Traffic Data: Beginning January 2008, Metropolitan Transportation Authority, via data.ny.gov. Retrieved 2026-07-16. Open data (data.ny.gov terms of use).

The numbers behind this chart

Year	Annual vehicle crossings on MTA bridges and tunnels
2009	294,810,205
2010	294,959,157
2011	286,916,264
2012	286,177,374
2013	287,792,356
2014	289,636,581
2015	301,121,346
2016	310,495,610
2017	312,029,288
2018	323,771,338
2019	329,396,609
2020	253,184,047
2021	307,302,128
2022	326,303,819
2023	335,119,822
2024	337,309,730

The key years

2009 294,810,205 The first complete year in the dataset: 294.8 million crossings.

2020 253,184,047 The pandemic floor.

2024 337,309,730 The record so far.

What this counts

Paid vehicle crossings on the nine MTA Bridges and Tunnels facilities: the Verrazzano-Narrows, Triborough (RFK), Whitestone, Throgs Neck, Henry Hudson, Marine Parkway and Cross Bay bridges, plus the Queens-Midtown and Hugh L. Carey tunnels. Each toll transaction counts once, as the MTA reports it monthly.

What it does not say

MTA crossings only. The Port Authority's Hudson crossings (the George Washington Bridge among them) and the city's free East River bridges are not in this count, so it is not a measure of all traffic into Manhattan.
The dataset's first complete year is 2009, and recent months can lag: the source showed no data yet for the months after August 2025, so 2025 stays off the chart until it completes.
It counts crossings, not vehicles: one car commuting daily is roughly 500 crossings a year.

The questions New Yorkers actually ask

How many vehicles use MTA bridges and tunnels?

Vehicles made 337.3 million paid crossings on the MTA's seven bridges and two tunnels in 2024, the most in the series, which begins in 2009.

The numbers move. We watch them.

These charts are the long view. The morning brief is the short one: what changed in New York today, what it costs you, and who benefits, in one free read.

Free to start. The unsubscribe link actually works.