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Chinatown (TLC zone 45) is a smaller, mostly-app zone with long local trips: 724,620 pickups in the 12 months to August 2026 (about 1,985 a day), 85.2% of them Uber or Lyft. Very few rides go to the airports (3.9% of app pickups). Yellow trips from here are long for Manhattan, with a $21.19 median meter fare. The whole zone is inside Lower Manhattan's 20 mph slow zone.
Chinatown at a glance (zone 45)
The TLC lookup table lists zone 45 as a "Yellow Zone", a label for the trip data, not a legal boundary. It borders Little Italy/NoLiTa, Lower East Side, Two Bridges/Seward Park, Seaport and TriBeCa/Civic Center. The city's street centerline map places Brooklyn Bridge entrance and exit ramps and part of the FDR Drive in the zone.
When rides start and end here
Weekday pickups peak in the evening, from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. (about 130 to 140 an hour). Weekday drop-offs have two peaks: 9 a.m. (124) and 6 p.m. (129). So some people come in for the workday, and more leave at night.
Saturday is 48% busier than a weekday (2,692 pickups against 1,821) and peaks at 9 p.m. On Sunday, pickups are highest at midnight, but drop-offs peak at 11 a.m. and noon, a late-morning Sunday arrival. In all five neighbouring zones, Sunday drop-offs peak at midnight instead.
May 2026 (66,970) and December 2025 (65,288) were the busiest months; February 2026 (55,345) was the quietest.
Where trips from here go
Trips mostly stay downtown. The top destinations are East Village (3.8% of pickups), Lower East Side (3.6%), "Outside NYC" (3.5%), Financial District North (3.1%) and TriBeCa/Civic Center (3.0%). Arriving riders come most often from East Village (4.8% of drop-offs) and TriBeCa/Civic Center (4.1%).
Fares, pay and tips
The median yellow trip from Chinatown is 2.95 miles and 17.4 minutes, with a $21.19 meter fare, half again the Yellow Zone middle. Card tips were 18.5%. App trips had a median of 3.37 miles, a $23.66 fare and $18.27 driver pay, with tips averaging $1.51.
Legal lines
- 20 mph slow zone. NYC DOT's Lower Manhattan Regional Slow Zone covers the island south of Canal Street. By our map check, all of zone 45 is south of Canal.
- Congestion Relief Zone. The zone is inside the MTA Congestion Relief Zone; the FDR Drive section is excluded. The fee was on 99.5% of app pickups and 94.2% of yellow pickups. Riders pay $1.50 per app trip and $0.75 per taxi trip (as of 2026-10-12).
- Brooklyn Bridge. Ramps to and from the bridge are in this zone. Whether a bridge trip into or out of Manhattan is charged is covered on East River bridges and the congestion zone.
- Hail Exclusionary Zone. Green cabs (104 pickups, 451 drop-offs) can't take hails here.
Stands and practical notes
DOT lists one relief stand: Chatham Square between East Broadway and Catherine Street, east side, 2 spaces, taxis only (checked 2026-10-12). DOT's sign file also has a current "TAXI STAND" sign record on Henry Street near Pike Street. App drivers may not pick up at a taxi stand (TLC Rule 80-19(d)(2)) and can't use a taxi-only relief stand. The nearest FHV-friendly relief stand in DOT's list is on Grand Street between Forsyth and Chrystie Streets (Lower East Side). See the relief stand finder.
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.
- Chinatown: trip facts by sector — Key trip facts for taxi zone 45 (Chinatown, Manhattan) 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.
- Chinatown: when trips start, by hour — Average pickups per day in each hour in zone 45, 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.
- Chinatown: pickups by month — Trips starting in taxi zone 45 (Chinatown, Manhattan) each month, by sector.NYC TLC Trip Record Data (yellow, green, high-volume FHV), Sep 2025 – Aug 2026 · pulled Oct 12, 2026
- Chinatown: where trips from here go — Top drop-off zones for trips starting in zone 45, 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 724,620 pickups. 'Outside NYC' = zone 265.
- Chinatown: where trips to here come from — Top pickup zones for trips ending in zone 45, 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 676,792 drop-offs.
- Chinatown: when trips arrive, by hour — Average drop-offs per day in each hour in zone 45, 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).
- Chinatown: drop-offs by month — Trips ending in taxi zone 45 (Chinatown, Manhattan) 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 taxi and Uber rides start in Chinatown?
TLC zone 45 had 724,620 pickups from September 2025 to August 2026, about 1,985 a day, 56th of Manhattan's 69 zones. 85.2% were app trips; yellow cabs did 14.8%.
Do many trips from Chinatown go to the airport?
Few. Only 3.9% of app pickups and 1.1% of yellow pickups went to an airport, against a middle value of 7.9% for app trips across Manhattan's Yellow Zone zones.
Is Chinatown in the Lower Manhattan 20 mph slow zone?
By our map check, all of TLC zone 45 lies south of Canal Street, which is how NYC DOT described the Lower Manhattan Regional Slow Zone (20 mph). Posted signs are the final word.
Is there a relief stand in Chinatown?
DOT lists one (checked 2026-10-12): Chatham Square between East Broadway and Catherine Street, east side, 2 spaces, taxis only, 1-hour limit.
Sources
Last reviewed against the official sources on .
- NYC TLC Trip Record Data nyc.gov
- TLC Taxi Zone Lookup Table d37ci6vzurychx.cloudfront.net
- MTA: Congestion Relief Zone tolls mta.info
- NYC DOT: Speed limit reductions and Lower Manhattan Regional Slow Zone (Oct 2024) nyc.gov
- NYC Open Data: NYC Street Centerline (CSCL) data.cityofnewyork.us
- NYC Open Data: Taxi and FHV Relief Stands (DOT, vqu8-xef9) data.cityofnewyork.us
- NYC Open Data: Parking Regulation Locations and Signs (DOT, nfid-uabd) data.cityofnewyork.us
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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.