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Prospect Heights, TLC taxi zone 189, is Brooklyn's middle zone. It had 941,920 pickups from September 2025 to August 2026, about 2,581 a day, and that is exactly the median of Brooklyn's 61 zones: 30 had more and 30 had fewer. Inside that average total, two things stand out. Its riders go to the airports more than most Brooklyn riders, with JFK slightly ahead of LaGuardia. And its weekday peak comes late, at 10 p.m.
Prospect Heights at a glance (zone 189)
The TLC lookup table lists zone 189 as Brooklyn with the label "Boro Zone", which sorts zones in the trip data and has no legal meaning. On the TLC map it borders six zones: Clinton Hill, Crown Heights North, Crown Heights South, Fort Greene, Park Slope and Prospect Park.
When rides start and end here
Weekday pickups build all day and peak at 10 p.m. (about 166). Saturday leads the week with about 3,730 pickups, and 11 p.m. is its top hour (about 263). Sunday's busiest hour is midnight, and 19.7% of Sunday pickups start before 5 a.m.
Drop-offs follow a similar curve. Weekday arrivals also peak at 10 p.m. (about 182), and 21.8% land between 5 and 8 p.m. So a driver who drops off here in the late evening arrives when pickups are also near their weekday high.
December 2025 had the most pickups (86,058) and September 2025 the fewest (69,424). Summer 2026 ran between 72,969 and 75,423 a month.
Where trips go, and the airport lean
Riders from Prospect Heights mostly stay in central Brooklyn. Park Slope takes 8.0% of pickups, Crown Heights North 7.4%, then Clinton Hill (4.4%), Fort Greene (4.0%) and Prospect-Lefferts Gardens (3.5%). JFK takes 3.1% and LaGuardia 2.7%. Yellow riders head to airports more here too: 3.5% of yellow pickups went to one, more than in neighbouring Clinton Hill (2.2%) or Fort Greene (1.3%). Only 11.7% of app pickups paid the Congestion Relief Zone charge.
Yellow, green and app: who serves the zone
App pickups numbered 920,687 (97.7%), yellow 20,813 and green 420. Taxis come here mainly to drop off. Yellow taxis ended 47,595 trips here, 2.3 times their pickups. Green cabs ended 2,049, nearly five times their pickups.
Fares and driver pay
Half of app trips from here were shorter than 2.7 miles; the median ride took 17.1 minutes, with a $19.01 fare and $15.75 driver pay before tips and tolls. App riders added $1.56 on average. Yellow trips had a median 4.48 miles, 25.6 minutes and a $28.45 fare. App pay per engaged hour was $58.78; it counts only time with a passenger, so it is higher than real hourly pay.
Pickup rules and notes
Prospect Heights is in TLC's Hail Zone (Chapter 51), so yellow and green cabs may take hails. App drivers need a booked trip through their base for every pickup (80-19(c)(1)). DOT's relief-stand list and sign records (checked 2026-10-12) show nothing for taxis inside zone 189. Next door in Fort Greene, a signed "TAXI/FHV PICK-UP/DROP-OFF ONLY" curb runs along Atlantic Avenue. See the Brooklyn zone rankings for where every zone stands.
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.
- Prospect Heights: trip facts by sector — Key trip facts for taxi zone 189 (Prospect Heights, Brooklyn) 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.
- Prospect Heights: when trips start, by hour — Average pickups per day in each hour in zone 189, 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.
- Prospect Heights: pickups by month — Trips starting in taxi zone 189 (Prospect Heights, Brooklyn) each month, by sector.NYC TLC Trip Record Data (yellow, green, high-volume FHV), Sep 2025 – Aug 2026 · pulled Oct 12, 2026
- Prospect Heights: where trips from here go — Top drop-off zones for trips starting in zone 189, 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 941,920 pickups. 'Outside NYC' = zone 265.
- Prospect Heights: where trips to here come from — Top pickup zones for trips ending in zone 189, 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 961,295 drop-offs.
- Prospect Heights: when trips arrive, by hour — Average drop-offs per day in each hour in zone 189, 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).
- Prospect Heights: drop-offs by month — Trips ending in taxi zone 189 (Prospect Heights, Brooklyn) 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 Prospect Heights compared with other Brooklyn zones?
It is right in the middle. TLC trip records show 941,920 pickups in zone 189 from September 2025 to August 2026, about 2,581 a day. That is the median of Brooklyn's 61 zones: 30 zones had more pickups and 30 had fewer.
Do trips from Prospect Heights go to JFK or LaGuardia?
Both, with JFK slightly ahead. JFK took 3.1% of all pickups and LaGuardia 2.7%. Overall, 6.5% of app pickups went to an airport, 5th-highest in Brooklyn.
When is Prospect Heights busiest?
Saturday at 11 p.m., with about 263 pickups on an average Saturday. Weekdays peak late too, at 10 p.m. (about 166), and Sunday's busiest hour is midnight.
Do riders tip well in Prospect Heights?
App riders tipped an average of $1.56 per trip, 6.1% of the fare, 8th-highest in Brooklyn. Card-paying yellow riders tipped 5.4% of the fare. Cash tips on taxis are not recorded.
Sources
Last reviewed against the official sources on .
- NYC TLC Trip Record Data nyc.gov
- TLC Taxi Zone Lookup Table d37ci6vzurychx.cloudfront.net
- TLC Rules, Chapter 51 (Definitions) nyc.gov
- TLC Rules, Chapter 80 (Drivers) nyc.gov
- NYC Open Data: Taxi and FHV Relief Stands (DOT, vqu8-xef9) data.cityofnewyork.us
- NYC Open Data: Parking Regulation Locations and Signs (DOT, nfid-uabd) data.cityofnewyork.us
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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.