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Upper East Side North (TLC zone 236) is one of the strongest yellow taxi zones in the city. In the 12 months to August 2026 it had 3,496,056 pickups (about 9,578 a day), and 1,831,606 of them were yellow taxis, the 3rd most of any NYC zone. Trips are short and local, weekdays are much busier than weekends, and pickups fell hard in the summer of 2026.
Data comes from TLC's trip files for yellow taxis, green cabs and Uber/Lyft, aggregated by TLC Help. TLC can revise these files after release, so treat the numbers as a snapshot.
Upper East Side North at a glance
The zone borders Upper East Side South (237), Lenox Hill West (141), Yorkville West (263), East Harlem South (75) and Central Park (43). TLC's lookup labels it "Yellow Zone", a data category. By our check of TLC's zone shape against the city's street centerline file, the whole zone lies south of 96th Street and north of 60th Street, east of Fifth Avenue.
When rides start and end
Weekdays dominate. An average weekday has about 10,204 pickups, a Saturday 8,954 and a Sunday 7,060. On weekdays pickups are highest from 3 to 6 p.m.: about 746 at 3 p.m., 688 at 4 p.m., 747 at 5 p.m. and 752 at 6 p.m. Late nights are very quiet: only 1.8% of weekday pickups start between midnight and 5 a.m., against 6.9% for Manhattan overall. Sundays peak around midday.
A steep summer fall
Pickups ran between about 274,000 and 329,000 a month from September 2025 to May 2026. Then they fell: 282,708 in June, 231,475 in July and 210,045 in August. August was 28% below September 2025 and 36% below December 2025. Manhattan as a whole fell about 9% from September to August, so this zone's drop was about three times larger. The data does not say why.
Where trips go: next door
Trips here are concentrated. 10.8% go to Upper East Side South and 7.8% stay in the zone, so almost one in five trips ends within two zones. The ten top destinations, all in Manhattan, take 48.1% of pickups. Midtown Center (4.6%) is the main Midtown destination, and the Upper West Side zones across the park take 7.3% between them. Airport trips are few: 6.7% of app and 1.2% of yellow pickups.
Fares, tips and pay
The median yellow fare of $11.40 is the second lowest in Manhattan, after Upper East Side South. Yellow card riders tip 24.4%, 4th highest in Manhattan. App trips are longer (2.6 miles, 17.6 minutes, $24.54 fare), with median driver pay of $17.87 (tips and tolls excluded) and about $1.99 in tips a trip. 40.6% of app and 34.3% of yellow pickups were charged the MTA Congestion Relief Zone fee.
Stands and relief stands
The East 78th Street relief stand is posted for taxis only, and TLC rules require you to obey posted vehicle types (Chapter 80, §80-19(d)(7)). At the taxi stands, take the rear position (80-19(d)(4)); for-hire drivers may not pick up there (80-19(d)(2)), and green cabs have no right to a stand position in the Hail Exclusionary Zone. Because the zone is south of 96th Street, the NYS congestion surcharge applies to in-state trips that start here.
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.
- Upper East Side North: trip facts by sector — Key trip facts for taxi zone 236 (Upper East Side North, 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.
- Upper East Side North: when trips start, by hour — Average pickups per day in each hour in zone 236, 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.
- Upper East Side North: pickups by month — Trips starting in taxi zone 236 (Upper East Side North, Manhattan) each month, by sector.NYC TLC Trip Record Data (yellow, green, high-volume FHV), Sep 2025 – Aug 2026 · pulled Oct 12, 2026
- Upper East Side North: where trips from here go — Top drop-off zones for trips starting in zone 236, 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 3,496,056 pickups. 'Outside NYC' = zone 265.
- Upper East Side North: where trips to here come from — Top pickup zones for trips ending in zone 236, 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 3,505,417 drop-offs.
- Upper East Side North: when trips arrive, by hour — Average drop-offs per day in each hour in zone 236, 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).
- Upper East Side North: drop-offs by month — Trips ending in taxi zone 236 (Upper East Side North, 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 many yellow taxi pickups are there on the Upper East Side North?
1,831,606 from September 2025 to August 2026, the 3rd most of TLC's 263 zones after Upper East Side South and Midtown Center. Yellow taxis had 52.4% of the zone's 3,496,056 pickups, more than Uber and Lyft combined.
Why did pickups drop so much in summer 2026?
The data shows the fall but not the reason. Pickups went from 329,190 in December 2025 to 231,475 in July and 210,045 in August 2026. August was 28% below September 2025, while Manhattan overall fell about 9%.
Where can drivers take a break in zone 236?
DOT lists a taxi-only relief stand on East 78th Street between Lexington and Third Avenues, with 2 spaces on each side of the street and a 1-hour limit. It is posted for taxis only, so for-hire vehicles may not use it.
How long is a typical taxi trip from here?
Short. The median yellow trip is 1.45 miles and 10.4 minutes, with an $11.40 meter fare, the second-lowest median yellow fare in Manhattan. Card riders tip 24.4%.
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 (PDF) nyc.gov
- TLC Rules Chapter 80: Rules Applicable to All Drivers (PDF) nyc.gov
- NYS Department of Taxation and Finance: Congestion surcharge tax.ny.gov
- NYC DOT: Taxi and For-Hire Vehicle Relief Stands 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
- NYC Open Data: Street Centerline (CSCL, inkn-q76z) 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.