Lincoln or Holland? Pick your tunnel by neighborhood

Every car crossing from Newark funnels through one of two tunnels, and the choice is mostly about which half of Manhattan you want to surface in. Get it wrong and you trade the tunnel time you saved for a crosstown crawl.

Lincoln Tunnel → Midtown and up

The Lincoln Tunnel surfaces around 40th Street on the West Side, which makes it the default for Midtown, Penn Station, Times Square, the East Side via the crosstown streets, and anything uptown. It is also the Airport Express bus's tunnel — the coach runs straight through it to the Port Authority. Peak weekday afternoons (4–8 PM) are its worst stretch.

Holland Tunnel → Downtown

The Holland Tunnel comes up at Canal Street, perfectly placed for Tribeca, SoHo, the West Village, the Financial District and the rest of Lower Manhattan. For any downtown drop, Holland saves you the trip down the West Side that the Lincoln would force.

The tolls are identical

Both run the same 2026 Port Authority toll — $16.79 by E-ZPass at peak, $14.79 off-peak, cashless, with pay-by-plate over $23. So the choice is purely about your destination, which is exactly how the booked-car operators route it. Our neighborhood pages call the tunnel for each Manhattan zone — start at the neighborhood guide.