Within the first five and a half hours of its opening, 10,563 motorists had paid a toll to use the tunnel. Forty thousand motorists used the tunnel within the first day, and at that rate, it was estimated that the tunnel might see 14 million vehicles per year, 40% more than originally estimated. This was in spite of the fact that traffic speeds were limited to , which reduced throughput. The 1,050-spot garage above the tunnel's northern portal opened a little more than a month after the tunnel opened. During the Battery Tunnel's first year of operation, the tunnel grossed nearly $5.5 million in toll revenues, and according to Caro, exceeded its 15-million-annual-vehicle capacity. Another analysis by the "Brooklyn Daily Eagle" found that 13.86 million vehicles had used the tunnel in its first year; this was lower than Caro's estimate, but higher than both the TBTA's initial estimate of 10 million vehicles per year, and expert forecasts of 8 million annual vehicles.