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Fresh Meadows (TLC zone 98) does not follow the usual rush-hour pattern. Its busiest weekday hour is 2 p.m., not 8 a.m. or 6 p.m. About 688 trips a day start here (250,984 in 12 months to August 2026), and they scatter: no destination takes more than 7.2% of pickups.
Figures are from TLC trip records for yellow taxis, green cabs and app trips (Uber, Lyft), totaled by TLC Help.
Fresh Meadows at a glance
Zone 98 has seven neighbors on TLC's map: Auburndale (9), Bayside (16), Hillcrest/Pomonok (121), Jamaica Estates (131), Oakland Gardens (175), Queens Village (191) and Queensboro Hill (192). The "Boro Zone" tag comes from TLC's lookup table and only groups data.
An afternoon zone
On weekdays, 2 p.m. averages about 51 pickups, a little ahead of 8 a.m. (about 48) and 5 p.m. (about 45). No other busy Queens zone outside the airports has its weekday pickup peak between noon and 5 p.m. The only others are Jamaica Bay and Willets Point, which had just 764 and 11,453 pickups in the whole year.
Weekends lean to the evening: Saturday peaks at 7 p.m. (about 42) and Sunday at 6 p.m. (about 35). Drop-offs keep a more normal shape, with the weekday high at 8 a.m. (about 52). Weekdays are the busiest days overall, with about 711 pickups on an average weekday, 677 on a Saturday and 580 on a Sunday. Late nights are quiet: 5.8% of weekday pickups start between midnight and 5 a.m.
Monthly pickups ranged from 18,816 in September 2025 to 22,741 in March 2026. Yellow taxis made 209 to 282 pickups a month until May 2026, then 97 to 124 a month from June to August.
Trips go everywhere nearby
Next door in Queensboro Hill, one zone (Flushing) takes 14.9% of all pickups. Fresh Meadows has no destination like that. The top ten are close together: Hillcrest/Pomonok 7.2%, Fresh Meadows itself 5.9%, Jamaica Estates 5.2%, Bayside 4.9%, Jamaica 4.8%, Forest Hills 4.7%, outside NYC 4.6%, Auburndale 3.9%, Flushing 3.6% and Kew Gardens Hills 3.5%. The top ten together account for under half of all pickups, so a rider here could be going almost anywhere in central or eastern Queens. Arrivals are spread the same way: the top origin, Hillcrest/Pomonok, sends only 6.7% of drop-offs, followed by Jamaica (5.6%) and Forest Hills (5.1%). Pickups and drop-offs are almost equal over the year (250,984 and 250,244).
Fares and pay
The median app trip is 3.81 miles in 14.3 minutes, with an $18.33 fare and $15.20 driver pay, above the Queens middle of $14.12. Pay per engaged hour is $65.35 (22nd); it counts only time with a passenger, not waiting or driving to pickups. App riders tipped 3.3% of the fare (about $0.75 a trip). Only 3.2% of app pickups went to an airport, and 2.7% paid the Manhattan congestion fee.
Yellow taxis made 2,511 pickups and 7,835 drop-offs. Their trips from here ran a median 8.16 miles and $32.50.
Pickup rules
Fresh Meadows is in TLC's Hail Zone (Chapter 51), so yellow and green cabs may take street hails. App drivers may only take trips sent by their base (80-19(c)(1)). DOT's relief-stand data shows no stand in the zone; the nearest is a taxi-only stand in Jackson Heights, about 5 miles away, and the nearest open to FHVs is in Woodside, about 5.5 miles away (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.
- Fresh Meadows: trip facts by sector — Key trip facts for taxi zone 98 (Fresh Meadows, 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.
- Fresh Meadows: when trips start, by hour — Average pickups per day in each hour in zone 98, 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.
- Fresh Meadows: pickups by month — Trips starting in taxi zone 98 (Fresh Meadows, Queens) each month, by sector.NYC TLC Trip Record Data (yellow, green, high-volume FHV), Sep 2025 – Aug 2026 · pulled Oct 12, 2026
- Fresh Meadows: where trips from here go — Top drop-off zones for trips starting in zone 98, 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 250,984 pickups. 'Outside NYC' = zone 265.
- Fresh Meadows: where trips to here come from — Top pickup zones for trips ending in zone 98, 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 250,244 drop-offs.
- Fresh Meadows: when trips arrive, by hour — Average drop-offs per day in each hour in zone 98, 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).
- Fresh Meadows: drop-offs by month — Trips ending in taxi zone 98 (Fresh Meadows, 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
When is Fresh Meadows busiest for pickups?
Weekday afternoons. The busiest weekday hour is 2 p.m. (about 51 pickups), ahead of 8 a.m. (about 48). No other busy Queens zone outside the airports has its weekday peak between noon and 5 p.m.
Where do trips from Fresh Meadows go?
All over central and eastern Queens. The top destination, Hillcrest/Pomonok, gets only 7.2% of pickups. Jamaica Estates (5.2%), Bayside (4.9%), Jamaica (4.8%) and Forest Hills (4.7%) follow.
How busy is Fresh Meadows?
TLC trip records show 250,984 pickups and 250,244 drop-offs from September 2025 to August 2026. Pickups average about 688 a day, 52nd of the 67 Queens zones outside the airports.
What does an app trip from Fresh Meadows pay?
The median app trip pays the driver $15.20 before tips and tolls (17th of 67 in Queens), for 3.81 miles in 14.3 minutes.
Sources
Last reviewed against the official sources on .
- NYC TLC Trip Record Data nyc.gov
- TLC Taxi Zone Lookup Table d37ci6vzurychx.cloudfront.net
- NYC Open Data: Taxi and FHV Relief Stands (DOT, vqu8-xef9) data.cityofnewyork.us
- TLC Rules Chapter 51: Definitions (PDF) nyc.gov
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