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Long Island City/Queens Plaza (TLC zone 146) sends more app trips into Manhattan's congestion zone than any other Queens zone outside the airports: 22% of app pickups paid the MTA Congestion Relief Zone fee. It starts about 1,934 rides a day, with Saturdays 53% busier than weekdays, and it has four relief stands with 21 spaces, one of the bigger clusters in Queens.
TLC Help built these figures from TLC's published trip records (yellow taxis, green cabs, and app trips by Uber and Lyft) for the 12 months to August 2026. Relief stands are from NYC DOT open data.
Queens Plaza at a glance
On TLC's zone map, zone 146 touches Astoria (7), Long Island City/Hunters Point (145), Queensbridge/Ravenswood (193) and Sunnyside (226). OpenStreetMap's outline of the Queensboro Bridge reaches into this zone. TLC's "Boro Zone" label groups data only.
TLC's licensing office is not here. TLC lists it at 31-00 47th Avenue (TLC locations); on TLC's map that address is in Sunnyside. See the LIC office guide.
Evenings and weekends
This is not a morning-commute zone. On weekdays, pickups peak at 5 and 6 p.m. (about 112 each), and the 8 a.m. hour is lower (about 95). Weekends are much bigger: about 2,654 pickups on a Saturday and 2,209 on a Sunday, against 1,736 on a weekday. The top hour of the week is Saturday at 6 p.m. (about 151), and Sunday's is midnight. Drop-offs peak late too: 9 p.m. on weekdays and 10 p.m. on Saturdays.
Month by month
Pickups ranged from 54,648 in February 2026 to 63,462 in August 2026, the busiest month. Yellow taxis made between about 2,900 and 4,400 pickups a month.
Where trips go
Astoria (10%) and Long Island City/Hunters Point (8.3%) lead, then LaGuardia (5.2%), Sunnyside (4.6%) and Old Astoria (4.1%). Only 2.9% stay inside the zone, and Greenpoint in Brooklyn makes the top ten (2.4%). Airports take 8.8% of app pickups, 7th in Queens. Trips into Manhattan are spread over many zones, so none shows in the top ten, but the congestion-fee share shows how many there are.
Fares, pay and the congestion fee
The median app trip is 3.12 miles but 16.7 minutes: a $19.07 fare and $16.10 driver pay. Trips are slow for their length, and pay per engaged hour is only $60.00 (59th of 67). Engaged hours count passenger time only, so they are not hourly earnings.
Yellow taxis made 6.6% of pickups (5th-highest share in Queens). Their trips here are the shortest in Queens by fare, a $22.56 median, and card riders tipped 16.3%. 45% of yellow pickups paid the congestion fee. As of October 12, 2026 the per-trip charge is $0.75 for taxis and green cabs and $1.50 for app trips, paid by the passenger (MTA). Use the congestion fee calculator to check a trip.
Relief stands and pickup rules
DOT's data (updated October 1, 2026) lists four relief stands, all taxi and FHV, 1-hour limit:
- 40th Avenue between Northern Boulevard and 30th Street, 11 spaces
- 31st Street between 36th and 37th Avenues, 4 spaces, posted 10AM-6PM except Saturday
- 34th Street between 37th and 38th Avenues, 3 spaces, posted 10:30AM-7PM all days
- 41st Avenue between Crescent Street and 27th Street, 3 spaces
Under Chapter 80 §80-19(d)(7) you must follow the posted time limit and vehicle types; the sign on the street wins over the data (relief stands guide). Zone 146 is in TLC's Hail Zone; app drivers may only take base-dispatched trips (80-19(c)(1); who can pick up where).
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.
- Long Island City/Queens Plaza: trip facts by sector — Key trip facts for taxi zone 146 (Long Island City/Queens Plaza, 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.
- Long Island City/Queens Plaza: when trips start, by hour — Average pickups per day in each hour in zone 146, 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.
- Long Island City/Queens Plaza: pickups by month — Trips starting in taxi zone 146 (Long Island City/Queens Plaza, Queens) each month, by sector.NYC TLC Trip Record Data (yellow, green, high-volume FHV), Sep 2025 – Aug 2026 · pulled Oct 12, 2026
- Long Island City/Queens Plaza: where trips from here go — Top drop-off zones for trips starting in zone 146, 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 705,912 pickups. 'Outside NYC' = zone 265.
- Long Island City/Queens Plaza: where trips to here come from — Top pickup zones for trips ending in zone 146, 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 716,408 drop-offs.
- Long Island City/Queens Plaza: when trips arrive, by hour — Average drop-offs per day in each hour in zone 146, 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).
- Long Island City/Queens Plaza: drop-offs by month — Trips ending in taxi zone 146 (Long Island City/Queens Plaza, 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
How busy is Long Island City/Queens Plaza?
TLC trip records show 705,912 pickups in zone 146 from September 2025 to August 2026, about 1,934 a day, 24th of the 67 Queens zones outside the airports.
Which Queens zone sends the most app trips into the congestion zone?
This one. 22% of app pickups in zone 146 paid the MTA Congestion Relief Zone fee, the highest share of 67 non-airport Queens zones (the middle is 3.1%). For yellow taxis it was 45%.
Where are the relief stands near Queens Plaza?
NYC DOT's data (updated October 1, 2026) lists four in zone 146, all for taxis and FHVs with a 1-hour limit: 40th Avenue between Northern Boulevard and 30th Street (11 spaces), 31st Street between 36th and 37th Avenues (4), 34th Street between 37th and 38th Avenues (3) and 41st Avenue between Crescent and 27th Streets (3). Some have posted hours.
Is the TLC Long Island City office in this zone?
No. TLC lists its Long Island City facility at 31-00 47th Avenue. On TLC's zone map that address is in Sunnyside (zone 226), not Queens Plaza.
When is the busiest time here?
Weekend evenings. Saturday at 6 p.m. is the top hour (about 151 pickups) and Sunday's busiest hour is midnight. On weekdays pickups peak in the evening, at 5–6 p.m., not in the morning.
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: TLC Locations nyc.gov
- TLC Rules Chapter 80: Rules Applicable to All Drivers (PDF) nyc.gov
- MTA: Congestion Relief Zone taxi and FHV tolls mta.info
Spotted something out of date? Tell us and we'll check it against the official source.
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.