Lincoln Square West Taxi Zone (143): Trips, Hours & Fares

Lincoln Square West (TLC zone 143) is a mid-sized Manhattan pickup zone that works like a residential morning origin. In the 12 months from September 2025 to August 2026, 1,665,229 trips started here (about 4,562 a day) and 1,525,982 ended here. About two of every three pickups were Uber or Lyft trips; yellow taxis had 31.8%. The busiest single hour is 8 a.m. on weekdays, and the most common destination is the next zone north, Upper West Side South.

All trip numbers on this page come from TLC trip records (yellow, green and high-volume app trips), aggregated by TLC Help. They do not include black car, livery or luxury trips that are not dispatched by Uber or Lyft.

Lincoln Square West at a glance

Zone 143 covers the western part of the Lincoln Square area, roughly from 59th Street north to the low 70s on the west side. Its neighbours on TLC's zone map are Lincoln Square East (142), Upper West Side South (239), Clinton East (48) and Clinton West (50). In the TLC lookup table its service_zone is "Yellow Zone". That is a label TLC uses in its data files, not a legal area, so it does not decide who may pick up here.

When rides start here

The weekday pattern is unusual for Manhattan. Most busy zones peak in the evening, but here the morning rush is bigger: an average weekday has about 1,072 pickups in the 7–9 a.m. hours combined, against about 879 in the 4–6 p.m. hours. The single busiest weekday hour is 8 a.m. (about 405 pickups), followed by 9 a.m. On Saturdays the peak moves to 6–7 p.m., and on Sundays demand is flat from late morning to early afternoon, topping out around noon.

Drop-offs follow a different clock. Weekday drop-offs peak at 5 p.m. and again at 9 p.m., and Saturday drop-offs peak at 10 p.m. In plain terms: people leave the area in the morning and come back in the evening and at night.

Late night is quiet. Only about 3% of weekday pickups happen between midnight and 5 a.m., and about 7% on Sundays.

Month by month

Pickups were highest in October 2025 (149,623), May 2026 (149,441) and December 2025 (149,346). They fell through the summer, to 117,266 in August 2026, about 22% below October. App pickups dropped more than yellow pickups over the year. The data cannot tell you why.

Where trips from here go

Trips from zone 143 are spread out and mostly short. The top destination, Upper West Side South, takes only 6.5% of pickups, and the ten most common destinations together take about 41%. Most of the top ten are other West Side and Midtown zones. Only 7.7% of app pickups and 1.2% of yellow pickups went to an airport. That is close to the middle value for Manhattan's "Yellow Zone" zones, about 7.9% of app trips.

Trips arriving here come from the same neighbours: Upper West Side South (6.8% of drop-offs), Lincoln Square East (5.9%) and Upper West Side North (4.6%).

Fares, distance and driver pay

The median app driver pay per trip here, $16.44, is one of the lowest among Manhattan's "Yellow Zone" zones: 49th of the 52 with enough data, where the middle value is about $18.13. That fits the short trips. App driver pay in TLC data leaves out tips and tolls. "Pay per engaged hour" ($65.32 here) counts only time with a passenger, so it is not what a driver earns per hour.

Green cab cells are blank because there were only 206 green pickups in a year. TLC Help does not publish medians for fewer than 250 trips.

Congestion fee, hail lines and the Lincoln Center rule

• MTA Congestion Relief Zone: the zone covers Manhattan south of and including 60th Street. We compared TLC's zone 143 shape with the city's 60th Street centerline. About 87% of the zone is north of 60th Street, so it is only partly inside the fee zone. The per-trip charge applies to trips to, from, within or through the zone. As of 2026-10-12 it is $1.50 for Uber/Lyft trips and $0.75 for taxi, green cab and other FHV trips. The passenger pays it. In the data, 53.8% of yellow pickups and 63.5% of app pickups here were charged. Full details: Congestion Relief Zone toll.
• NYS congestion surcharge: all of zone 143 is south of 96th Street, inside the state's congestion zone. As of 2026-10-12 the surcharge is $2.50 per medallion taxi trip and $2.75 per non-pool FHV trip. It applies only when the trip begins and ends in New York State.
• Hail Exclusionary Zone: the zone is in Manhattan south of West 110th Street (TLC Chapter 51). Green cabs may not take hails or start pre-arranged trips here. An FHV pickup that was not pre-arranged carries the enhanced penalties of Rule 80-19(c)(2).
• Lincoln Center: Rule 80-19(a)(4)(iii) bars taxi drivers from soliciting or cruising for passengers "within the private streets of Lincoln Center". On our zone check, the campus sits on or near the line between zones 142 and 143.

For which line applies to which license, see who can pick up where.

Stands and practical notes

We checked the DOT relief-stand dataset (updated October 1, 2026) and current DOT parking-sign records (updated October 11, 2026). Neither places a taxi stand or a relief stand inside zone 143. The nearest stands listed are taxi-stand signs on Broadway and on West 60th Street in Lincoln Square East, and seven relief stands in Clinton West. DOT warns that its map "may not be reflective of all current posted regulations", so the sign on the street is what counts. More: relief stand rules and the relief stand finder.