Crown Heights North Taxi Zone (61): Trips, Hours & Fares

Crown Heights North (TLC zone 61) is the busiest zone in Brooklyn for both pickups and drop-offs. From September 2025 to August 2026, 3,364,435 trips started here, about 9,218 a day. Its 3,287,995 app pickups were the third-most of any zone in New York City, behind only LaGuardia and JFK airports. Per trip, though, it is a typical Brooklyn zone: short rides and median pay.

The data is TLC trip records for yellow, green and high-volume app trips, aggregated by TLC Help. Black car and livery trips that are not app-dispatched are left out.

Crown Heights North at a glance

Zone 61 is labelled "Boro Zone" in TLC's lookup table. The label is used for data only; it is not a legal zone. TLC's map gives it eight neighbors: Bedford, Brownsville, Clinton Hill, Crown Heights South, East Flatbush/Remsen Village, Ocean Hill, Prospect Heights and Stuyvesant Heights.

It is 11th of all 263 zones citywide by total pickups and 7th by drop-offs. More trips end here (3,593,082) than start here. Apps did 97.7% of pickups. Yellow taxis still had 74,805 pickups, the 3rd-most in Brooklyn, even though their share is only 2.2%.

When rides start

On weekdays there is a morning bump at 8 and 9 a.m. (about 447 an hour), a dip around midday, then the peak at 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. (about 533 and 529 an hour). Pickups stay above 450 an hour until midnight. A weekday averages about 8,515 pickups.

Weekends are bigger. Saturday averages about 11,789 pickups, and its 11 p.m. hour (about 784) is the busiest hour of the week. Sunday opens at about 728 pickups in the midnight hour, then runs at about 470 to 520 an hour through the afternoon and evening. Even the quietest hour, around 3 a.m. on weekdays, sees about 102 pickups.

Month by month

September 2025 was the slowest month (253,046 pickups) and December 2025 the busiest (295,443). Every other month fell between about 267,000 and 294,000.

Yellow pickups ran at about 6,000 to 7,600 a month until May 2026, then dropped to about 4,000 a month from June to August. The app series shows no matching drop, and the records do not explain the change.

Where trips go

The single biggest destination is the zone itself: 12.9% of trips start and end in Crown Heights North. The rest fan out to the zones around it:

• Stuyvesant Heights: 5.5%
• Prospect-Lefferts Gardens: 5.3%
• Bedford: 4.8%
• Bushwick South: 3.5%
• Ocean Hill: 3.3%
• Brownsville and Crown Heights South: 3.2% each

The pattern runs both ways. The top origins of trips that end here are almost the same list, led by the zone itself (12.1%).

Fares, trip length and driver pay

The median app trip is 2.41 miles and 15.2 minutes, with a $16.43 fare. That fare is the Brooklyn zone median. Median driver pay is $13.90 before tips and tolls, also the median. Tips equal 3.5% of app fares, with an average of $0.76.

3.8% of app pickups go to an airport, and 5.9% are charged the Manhattan congestion fee. Yellow trips run longer (median 4.42 miles, $26.91), and 15.7% of them were charged the congestion fee. Card tips on yellow trips are just 0.6% of fares; cash tips are not recorded.

Pickup rules and curb signs

The whole zone is in TLC's Hail Zone. Yellow and green cabs can take street hails. App drivers can pick up only riders sent by their base. A street pickup risks a summons under 80-19(c)(1). If a trip goes into Manhattan at or below 60th Street, the rider pays the congestion charge: $1.50 on app trips, $0.75 on taxi trips, as of 2026-10-12 (MTA). Read who can pick up where for details. This is general information, not legal advice.

Curb signs: DOT's sign data shows a "TAXI/FHV PICK-UP/DROP-OFF ONLY" location on Eastern Parkway between Utica Avenue and Rochester Avenue (nfid-uabd). The data lists no taxi stand and no relief stand in the zone (checked October 12, 2026). Always check the sign on the pole: data can lag the street.