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Astoria Park (TLC zone 8) is one of the quietest zones in Queens: about 32 pickups a day, 65th of the 67 Queens zones outside the airports. But it is strongly seasonal. Summer months had more than three times the pickups of February, and an average Saturday is about 1.8 times as busy as a weekday. The top destinations are Astoria and Steinway, with about three trips in ten between them.
Numbers below are from TLC trip records for yellow taxis, green cabs and high-volume app services (Uber, Lyft), September 2025 to August 2026, totaled by TLC Help. Because the counts are small, a few busy days can move a month a lot.
Astoria Park at a glance
The zone is named for Astoria Park. On TLC's zone map it touches just two zones: Old Astoria (179) and Steinway (223). TLC's lookup table calls it a "Boro Zone", which is a data label, not a legal line (taxi zones explained).
A summer zone
Pickups fell every month from 1,045 in September 2025 to a low of 458 in February 2026, then climbed to 1,671 in June 2026 and stayed above 1,500 in July and August. Drop-offs swing even more: 2,900 in June 2026 against 411 in February.
Weekend afternoons, weekday evenings
An average weekday has about 27 pickups; a Saturday about 48 and a Sunday about 42. On weekends pickups are highest from about 3 to 6 p.m. (several hours tie). On weekdays, rides cluster later, peaking around 7 p.m. Almost a third of the week's pickups (30.4%) start between 4 and 8 p.m., and only 5.6% start between midnight and 5 a.m.
Even at the peak, the hourly averages are small (about 4 pickups at 3 p.m. on a Saturday). Treat the shape, not the exact numbers, as the useful part.
Where trips go
The top destinations are nearby. Astoria takes 18.8% of pickups and Steinway 12.4%, then Old Astoria (6.7%) and Long Island City/Hunters Point (5.0%). LaGuardia gets 2.2%. Trips into the zone come from the same places, led by Astoria (18%) and Steinway (11%).
Fares and pay
The median app trip is 2.94 miles and 14.9 minutes with a $17.16 fare and $14.23 driver pay. Pay per engaged hour, $59.96, is in the bottom ten of Queens (60th of 67). Trips here are slow for their length: 2.94 miles takes about 15 minutes. Engaged hours count only time with a passenger, so they are not hourly earnings.
Yellow taxis made 599 pickups, 5.1% of the total, a high share for Queens. 16% of those yellow trips paid the MTA Congestion Relief Zone fee, so some of them head into Manhattan below 60th Street.
Rules and the RFK Bridge
- Zone 8 is in TLC's Hail Zone (Chapter 51): yellow and green cabs may accept street hails. App and other FHV drivers must not pick up anyone who did not book through their base (80-19(c)(1); who can pick up where).
- RFK Bridge: OpenStreetMap's line for the bridge's Queens approach runs through this zone and Steinway. As of October 12, 2026 a car pays $7.46 with a New York E-ZPass, $9.79 mid-tier or $12.03 by Tolls by Mail (MTA). Details are on the RFK Bridge page.
- Relief stands: none inside zone 8 in DOT's data. The closest is on Hoyt Avenue North between 28th and 29th Streets in Steinway, about 0.35 mile in a straight line from the zone's edge (4 spaces, taxis and FHVs).
Nearby zones
Data on this page
Aggregates of public data. They describe trips and vehicles, never individual people.
Aggregated by TLC Help from TLC trip records, Sep 2025 – Aug 2026 (pickup date; TLC publishes trip files about two months after the month ends and may revise them). 'App' = high-volume for-hire services (Uber, Lyft). Taxi records with a negative fare (reversals) are excluded. Averages, medians and rates use 'clean' trips only: 1 minute to 4 hours, more than 0 and under 150 miles, fare above $0 and under $1,000. 'Fare' is the metered fare_amount for taxis and base_passenger_fare for app trips — before tolls, tips, taxes and surcharges — so it is not what the passenger paid in total. App driver_pay is TLC's 'total driver pay (not including tolls or tips and net of commission, surcharges, or taxes)'. Tips are separate. 'Per engaged hour' divides pay by passenger time only (pickup to drop-off). It leaves out time driving to pickups and waiting for requests, so real hourly earnings are lower; it is not the TLC minimum-pay formula. Monthly cells with 1–9 trips are shown as blank (null). Pairs with fewer than 10 trips are not listed.
- Astoria Park: trip facts by sector — Key trip facts for taxi zone 8 (Astoria Park, Queens) by sector, 12 months.NYC TLC Trip Record Data (yellow, green, high-volume FHV), Sep 2025 – Aug 2026 · pulled Oct 12, 2026Taxi tips: tip_amount records credit-card tips only (cash tips are not recorded), so taxi tip rates use credit-card trips (payment_type 1). App tips are the tips field on every trip. Tip rate = tips ÷ fare. Medians and rates need at least 250 trips in the cell (else blank); counts of 1–9 are blank. Pickup-side stats (fare, pay, tips) describe trips that START here.
- Astoria Park: when trips start, by hour — Average pickups per day in each hour in zone 8, on weekdays, Saturdays and Sundays (all sectors).NYC TLC Trip Record Data (yellow, green, high-volume FHV), Sep 2025 – Aug 2026 · pulled Oct 12, 2026Average over all such days in the window, holidays included.
- Astoria Park: pickups by month — Trips starting in taxi zone 8 (Astoria Park, Queens) each month, by sector.NYC TLC Trip Record Data (yellow, green, high-volume FHV), Sep 2025 – Aug 2026 · pulled Oct 12, 2026
- Astoria Park: where trips from here go — Top drop-off zones for trips starting in zone 8, as a share of all its pickups (12 months, all sectors).NYC TLC Trip Record Data (yellow, green, high-volume FHV), Sep 2025 – Aug 2026 · pulled Oct 12, 2026Out of 11,792 pickups. 'Outside NYC' = zone 265.
- Astoria Park: where trips to here come from — Top pickup zones for trips ending in zone 8, as a share of all its drop-offs (12 months, all sectors).NYC TLC Trip Record Data (yellow, green, high-volume FHV), Sep 2025 – Aug 2026 · pulled Oct 12, 2026Out of 15,094 drop-offs.
- Astoria Park: when trips arrive, by hour — Average drop-offs per day in each hour in zone 8, on weekdays, Saturdays and Sundays (all sectors; hour of pickup).NYC TLC Trip Record Data (yellow, green, high-volume FHV), Sep 2025 – Aug 2026 · pulled Oct 12, 2026Hour is the trip's pickup hour (TLC records both, but a trip is binned by when it started).
- Astoria Park: drop-offs by month — Trips ending in taxi zone 8 (Astoria Park, Queens) each month, by sector.NYC TLC Trip Record Data (yellow, green, high-volume FHV), Sep 2025 – Aug 2026 · pulled Oct 12, 2026
- All 263 taxi zones: trips and key facts (map-ready) — One row per TLC taxi zone (LocationID 1–263) with pickups, drop-offs, sector mix, app driver pay, fares and tip rates — the source for zone maps, hubs and the zone explorer.NYC TLC Trip Record Data (yellow, green, high-volume FHV), Sep 2025 – Aug 2026 · pulled Oct 12, 2026Medians/rates need ≥250 trips (else null). labels are LocationIDs as strings; zones[] has names, boroughs, service_zone (from taxi_zone_lookup.csv), suggested slugs and neighbouring zone ids (shared boundary, from taxi_zones.zip).
Frequently asked questions
How many rides start in the Astoria Park zone?
Very few. TLC trip records show 11,792 pickups in zone 8 from September 2025 to August 2026, about 32 a day. Only two Queens zones outside the airports had fewer.
When is Astoria Park busiest?
Summer weekend afternoons. June 2026 had 1,671 pickups, against 458 in February 2026. On Saturdays and Sundays pickups are highest from about 3 to 6 p.m.; on weekdays the top hour is 7 p.m.
Why are there more drop-offs than pickups here?
In the 12 months there were 15,094 drop-offs and 11,792 pickups, about 1.28 drop-offs per pickup. The trip data does not record why, and it does not count walking, transit or non-app car services.
Is the RFK Bridge in this zone?
OpenStreetMap's line for the RFK Bridge's Queens approach crosses zones 8 (Astoria Park) and 223 (Steinway). As of October 12, 2026 the car toll is $7.46 with a New York E-ZPass and $12.03 by Tolls by Mail.
Sources
Last reviewed against the official sources on .
- NYC TLC Trip Record Data nyc.gov
- TLC Taxi Zone Lookup Table d37ci6vzurychx.cloudfront.net
- TLC Rules Chapter 51: Definitions (PDF) nyc.gov
- TLC Rules Chapter 80: Rules Applicable to All Drivers (PDF) nyc.gov
- MTA Bridges & Tunnels: Tolls by vehicle type mta.info
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TLC Help is not a law firm and is not affiliated with the NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission or OATH. Explanations on this site are general information, not legal advice. Legal representation is provided by independent attorneys and OATH-registered representatives in our network.