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Kew Gardens Hills (TLC zone 135) is a weekday zone. About 1,306 trips a day start here (476,552 in 12 months to August 2026), but Saturdays are 21% quieter than weekdays, the biggest Saturday drop of any Queens zone outside the airports. Sunday is busier than Saturday. Forest Hills is the top destination, taking one trip in seven.
TLC Help totaled these figures from TLC's trip records for yellow taxis, green cabs and high-volume app trips (Uber, Lyft), September 2025 to August 2026.
Kew Gardens Hills at a glance
On TLC's map, zone 135 borders Briarwood/Jamaica Hills (28), Flushing Meadows-Corona Park (93), Hillcrest/Pomonok (121) and Queensboro Hill (192). It is a separate zone from Kew Gardens (134). TLC lists it as "Boro Zone", which is only a data label.
The week here: busy weekdays, slow Saturdays
An average weekday has about 1,387 pickups, a Saturday about 1,090 and a Sunday about 1,113. In 52 of the 67 non-airport Queens zones, an average Saturday is at least as busy as an average weekday. Here Saturday is the quietest day of the week, and no other Queens zone outside the airports falls further from weekday to Saturday. The gap is all in the daytime: from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday pickups stay below weekday pickups every hour. Only from 8 p.m. on does Saturday pull ahead, with about 50 to 59 pickups an hour against 30 to 53 on weekdays.
Within the day, 8 a.m. on weekdays is the peak for both pickups (about 121) and drop-offs (about 114). Saturday pickups are flat in the evening, around 59 an hour from 6 to 8 p.m. Sunday's top hour is 10 a.m. (about 69).
Month by month: a summer dip
Pickups peaked in March 2026 (45,720) and fell to 35,678 in July 2026, the low of the year. August (36,488) was only slightly higher. Drop-offs followed the same path.
Where trips go
Forest Hills takes 14.7% of pickups, more than twice any other zone. After it come trips inside Kew Gardens Hills (6.9%), Hillcrest/Pomonok (5.7%), Jamaica (5.6%), Flushing (3.8%) and Kew Gardens (3.6%). Both airports make the top ten: JFK 2.5% and LaGuardia 2.4%. In all, 5.0% of app pickups went to an airport (23rd in Queens).
Forest Hills is also the top source of arrivals (12.4% of drop-offs).
Fares and pay
The median app trip is 3.26 miles in 14.7 minutes, with a $17.77 fare and $14.66 driver pay, a little above the Queens middle. Pay per engaged hour is $62.80. That counts only time with a rider, so it is not the same as hourly earnings. App riders tipped 3.3% of the fare.
Taxis mostly bring riders in. Yellow cabs made 15,785 drop-offs here but 5,637 pickups. Green cabs made 2,792 drop-offs and only 319 pickups.
Pickup rules
Kew Gardens Hills is in TLC's Hail Zone (Chapter 51): yellow and green cabs may pick up street hails. App drivers may only accept trips dispatched by their base (80-19(c)(1)). DOT lists no relief stand in the zone; the closest in its data is a taxi-only stand in Jackson Heights, about 3 miles away; for FHVs the closest is in Woodside, about 3.3 miles away. See relief stands in NYC.
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.
- Kew Gardens Hills: trip facts by sector — Key trip facts for taxi zone 135 (Kew Gardens Hills, 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.
- Kew Gardens Hills: when trips start, by hour — Average pickups per day in each hour in zone 135, 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.
- Kew Gardens Hills: pickups by month — Trips starting in taxi zone 135 (Kew Gardens Hills, Queens) each month, by sector.NYC TLC Trip Record Data (yellow, green, high-volume FHV), Sep 2025 – Aug 2026 · pulled Oct 12, 2026
- Kew Gardens Hills: where trips from here go — Top drop-off zones for trips starting in zone 135, 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 476,552 pickups. 'Outside NYC' = zone 265.
- Kew Gardens Hills: where trips to here come from — Top pickup zones for trips ending in zone 135, 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 480,584 drop-offs.
- Kew Gardens Hills: when trips arrive, by hour — Average drop-offs per day in each hour in zone 135, 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).
- Kew Gardens Hills: drop-offs by month — Trips ending in taxi zone 135 (Kew Gardens Hills, 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
Is Kew Gardens Hills busy on Saturdays?
Less than on other days. An average Saturday has about 1,090 pickups against 1,387 on a weekday and 1,113 on a Sunday. That makes Saturday 21% quieter than a weekday, the biggest weekday-to-Saturday drop of any Queens zone outside the airports.
Where do rides from Kew Gardens Hills go?
Forest Hills is first, with 14.7% of pickups. Next are trips inside the zone (6.9%), Hillcrest/Pomonok (5.7%) and Jamaica (5.6%).
How busy is Kew Gardens Hills overall?
TLC trip records show 476,552 pickups from September 2025 to August 2026, about 1,306 a day, 40th of the 67 Queens zones outside the airports.
When is the busiest hour here?
Weekday mornings. At 8 a.m. on weekdays the zone averages about 121 pickups and 114 drop-offs, its busiest hour for both.
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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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.