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The Lower East Side (TLC zone 148) is Manhattan's most after-midnight zone. Half of all Sunday pickups (51.1%) start between midnight and 5 a.m., the highest share of any Manhattan zone with more than 100,000 pickups a year, and an average Saturday has 2.2 times the pickups of a weekday. Over the 12 months to August 2026 the zone had 3,019,699 pickups, about 8,273 a day, and about 622,000 more pickups than drop-offs. Four out of five rides were Uber or Lyft trips.
Lower East Side at a glance (zone 148)
The TLC lookup table labels zone 148 "Yellow Zone", which is a trip-data category, not a legal boundary. Its neighbours are East Village, Alphabet City, Two Bridges/Seward Park, Chinatown, Little Italy/NoLiTa and Greenwich Village South.
When rides start and end here
Even on weekdays, the peak is late: 11 p.m. (613 pickups), and 16.5% of weekday pickups come between midnight and 5 a.m. Weekday drop-offs peak at 7 p.m., so riders arrive in the evening and leave hours later.
At the weekend the numbers more than double. The top Sunday hours are 1 a.m. (1,560), midnight (1,347) and 2 a.m. (1,330), all from Saturday night. Friday night is almost as big: Saturday's 1 a.m. hour averages 1,517 pickups. Weekend mornings are close to empty, with the low point at 7 a.m.
May 2026 was the busiest month (276,914 pickups) and February 2026 the quietest (230,745).
Where trips from here go, including Brooklyn
East Village is the top destination (4.7% of pickups), then "Outside NYC" (4.0%). Two Brooklyn zones make the top ten: Williamsburg (South Side), 2.0%, and Williamsburg (North Side), 1.9% (Williamsburg South Side zone). Arriving riders come most often from East Village (5.9% of drop-offs) and TriBeCa/Civic Center (3.5%); LaGuardia Airport is also on that list (2.4%).
Yellow, green and app
App: 2,429,076 pickups (80.4%). Yellow: 590,564 (19.6%). Green: 59 pickups and 885 drop-offs. Green cabs can't start trips south of East 96th Street, so they only drop off here.
Fares and driver pay
Trips from here are fairly long for Manhattan: median 3.3 miles on app trips and 2.46 miles on yellow trips. The median yellow meter fare was $17.70 ($14.20 is the Yellow Zone middle), with 21.6% card tips. App trips had a median fare of $24.44 and median driver pay of $18.23; tips averaged $1.37, only 4.5% of the fare.
Legal lines
The whole zone is inside the MTA Congestion Relief Zone: 99.6% of app pickups and 98.3% of yellow pickups paid the fee. Late-night trips are charged too; the per-trip amounts ($1.50 app, $0.75 taxi, as of 2026-10-12) apply at all hours. Trips to Williamsburg that cross the East River bridges are covered on East River bridges. Canal Street forms part of the zone's southern edge; NYC DOT's 20 mph Regional Slow Zone is described as Manhattan south of Canal Street, so check posted speed signs near that edge.
Stands and practical notes
DOT lists one relief stand in zone 148 (checked 2026-10-12): Grand Street between Forsyth Street and Chrystie Street, north side, 7 spaces, open to taxis and FHVs, 1-hour limit. The stands in neighbouring Chinatown and Two Bridges/Seward Park are taxi-only, so this one matters for app drivers. DOT's parking-sign file has no taxi-stand sign in zone 148. Under TLC Rule 80-19(d)(7), take any open space but keep to the posted time limit. More stands: 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.
- Lower East Side: trip facts by sector — Key trip facts for taxi zone 148 (Lower East Side, Manhattan) 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.
- Lower East Side: when trips start, by hour — Average pickups per day in each hour in zone 148, 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.
- Lower East Side: pickups by month — Trips starting in taxi zone 148 (Lower East Side, Manhattan) each month, by sector.NYC TLC Trip Record Data (yellow, green, high-volume FHV), Sep 2025 – Aug 2026 · pulled Oct 12, 2026
- Lower East Side: where trips from here go — Top drop-off zones for trips starting in zone 148, 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 3,019,699 pickups. 'Outside NYC' = zone 265.
- Lower East Side: where trips to here come from — Top pickup zones for trips ending in zone 148, 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 2,397,702 drop-offs.
- Lower East Side: when trips arrive, by hour — Average drop-offs per day in each hour in zone 148, 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).
- Lower East Side: drop-offs by month — Trips ending in taxi zone 148 (Lower East Side, Manhattan) 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 the Lower East Side taxi zone?
Zone 148 had 3,019,699 pickups from September 2025 to August 2026, about 8,273 a day. That was 16th of Manhattan's 69 zones and 19th of all 263 zones in the city.
When is the Lower East Side busiest?
Late on weekend nights. 51.1% of Sunday pickups happen between midnight and 5 a.m., with the top hour at 1 a.m. (about 1,560 pickups). An average Saturday has 2.2 times the pickups of a weekday.
Do many trips from the Lower East Side go to Brooklyn?
Williamsburg shows up in the top ten destinations twice: Williamsburg (South Side) at 2.0% of pickups and Williamsburg (North Side) at 1.9%. The top destination is East Village (4.7%).
Is there a relief stand on the Lower East Side?
DOT lists one in zone 148 (checked 2026-10-12): Grand Street between Forsyth Street and Chrystie Street, north side, 7 spaces, open to taxis and FHVs, 1-hour limit.
Sources
Last reviewed against the official sources on .
- NYC TLC Trip Record Data nyc.gov
- TLC Taxi Zone Lookup Table d37ci6vzurychx.cloudfront.net
- MTA: Congestion Relief Zone taxi and FHV tolls mta.info
- NYC Open Data: Taxi and FHV Relief Stands (DOT, vqu8-xef9) data.cityofnewyork.us
- NYC DOT: Taxi and For-Hire Vehicle Relief Stands nyc.gov
- NYC DOT: Speed limit reductions and Lower Manhattan Regional Slow Zone (Oct 2024) nyc.gov
- TLC Rules, Chapter 80 (Drivers) 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.