With the start of congestion pricing, some didn’t realize there are income-based discounts and disability-based exemptions despite the MTA’s outreach efforts.

George Diaz didn’t know he was eligible, though he is a disabled veteran who lives in the so-called congestion relief zone.

“My feet. I can’t be on my feet for prolonged periods of time,” Diaz said. “I was injured in the military service in 1969.”

He has a city-issued placard. Also, Diaz and his wife found out it should have made the process for receiving an exemption from the congestion pricing toll a bit easier.

“The application process for most people is like five or six pages, and you have to make an appointment, and you have to go in and be and discuss it,” Margaret Mackenzie Diaz said. “It’s amazing, I don’t know if you’ve looked at it but it’s a very complicated thing. They ask you about, 'Are you afraid to ride the subway? How many steps do you have to walk?' But if you have a New York City-issued handicap parking permit, all you do is you upload it.”

She did just that... over and over and over.

“About 25 times. And every time I do it, I get to the bottom, I do everything I’m supposed to do, I enter the number, I enter the expiration date, I approve it,” Mackenzie Diaz said. “And all it does is it goes to processing.”

She tried calling several city agencies after she couldn’t get through to the MTA. She tried the MTA again on Monday and finally got someone.

“All she could say is I can’t help you,” Mackenzie Diaz she. “A lot of people are having this problem.”

The MTA tells NY1 it’s looking into the issue with the website but that since the spring it’s approved over 1,700 exemptions.

After NY1 reached out to the MTA, NY1 put them in touch with the Diazs. The couple says the MTA was able to resolve their issue and give them the exemption.