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Whitestone (TLC zone 252) is a quiet, app-only part of northeast Queens. About 969 rides a day start here (353,551 in the 12 months to August 2026), and 99.1% of them are Uber or Lyft trips. Most rides are short trips to nearby neighborhoods, the weekday peak is at 8 a.m., and the Queens end of the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge is in this zone.
The numbers come from TLC trip records for yellow taxis, green cabs and high-volume app services (Uber and Lyft), added up by TLC Help. Black car and livery trips that are not app trips are not in this data.
Whitestone at a glance
Zone 252 sits on the north shore of Queens. On TLC's zone map it touches four zones: Bay Terrace/Fort Totten (15), College Point (53), Flushing (92) and Murray Hill-Queens (171). In TLC's lookup table its service zone is "Boro Zone". That label is only for sorting data. It is not a legal line (see taxi zones explained).
When rides start: mornings and Saturday evenings
Whitestone has a commuter shape. On weekdays, pickups climb fast after 5 a.m. and peak at 8 a.m. (about 65 an hour), then stay fairly flat through the afternoon. The busiest hour of the whole week is Saturday at 6 p.m. (about 70 pickups). An average Saturday has about 1,077 pickups, a weekday about 975, and a Sunday about 832.
Nights are slow. Only 6.8% of the week's pickups start between midnight and 5 a.m., and the 3 a.m. weekday hour averages under 8 pickups.
Month by month
Pickups were steady all year, between 26,030 (September 2025) and 31,170 (December 2025) a month. The small yellow taxi count fell by more than half in summer: from 342–345 a month in January and February 2026 to 157 in August 2026.
Where trips go: mostly next door
11.9% of trips end inside Whitestone. Next come Flushing (10.4%) and College Point (9.6%), then Murray Hill-Queens (6.9%) and Bayside (4.6%). So more than four in ten trips stay in this corner of northeast Queens. 3.6% leave New York City, and the two airports together take 4.7% (LaGuardia 2.7%, JFK 2.0%).
Fares and driver pay
The median app trip from Whitestone is 4.08 miles and 13.8 minutes, with an $18.26 fare and $15.04 driver pay. Pay per engaged hour is $67.58, 13th-highest in Queens outside the airports; trips here cover their distance quickly. Engaged hours count only time with a passenger, so this is not hourly earnings. App riders tipped 4.2% of the fare on average.
Only 3.1% of app pickups paid the MTA Congestion Relief Zone fee, the same as the Queens middle value. Few trips from here go into Manhattan below 60th Street.
Pickup rules and the bridge
- Whitestone is in TLC's Hail Zone (Chapter 51): all of NYC except Manhattan below East 96th/West 110th Street and the airports. Yellow taxis and green cabs may take street hails here.
- App and other FHV drivers may pick up only trips arranged through their base (80-19(c)(1)). More in who can pick up where.
- Bronx-Whitestone Bridge: OpenStreetMap's outline of the bridge crosses into zone 252, so this is where it lands in Queens. As of October 12, 2026, a car pays $7.46 with a New York E-ZPass, $9.79 mid-tier, or $12.03 by Tolls by Mail (MTA). Who pays on a passenger trip is on the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge page.
- Relief stands: none in this zone in DOT's data; the closest Queens one that takes FHVs is about 3.8 miles away on 64th Street in Woodside. See relief stands in NYC.
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.
- Whitestone: trip facts by sector — Key trip facts for taxi zone 252 (Whitestone, 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.
- Whitestone: when trips start, by hour — Average pickups per day in each hour in zone 252, 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.
- Whitestone: pickups by month — Trips starting in taxi zone 252 (Whitestone, Queens) each month, by sector.NYC TLC Trip Record Data (yellow, green, high-volume FHV), Sep 2025 – Aug 2026 · pulled Oct 12, 2026
- Whitestone: where trips from here go — Top drop-off zones for trips starting in zone 252, 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 353,551 pickups. 'Outside NYC' = zone 265.
- Whitestone: where trips to here come from — Top pickup zones for trips ending in zone 252, 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 369,179 drop-offs.
- Whitestone: when trips arrive, by hour — Average drop-offs per day in each hour in zone 252, 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).
- Whitestone: drop-offs by month — Trips ending in taxi zone 252 (Whitestone, 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 many rides start in Whitestone?
TLC trip records show 353,551 pickups in zone 252 from September 2025 to August 2026, about 969 a day. That puts Whitestone 47th of the 67 Queens zones outside the two airports.
Do yellow taxis work in Whitestone?
Very little. Yellow taxis made 2,940 of the pickups (0.8%). Almost every trip that starts here is an app trip (Uber or Lyft). Green cabs made 142 pickups in the whole year.
When is Whitestone busiest?
On weekdays, pickups peak at 8 a.m. (about 65 an hour on average). The busiest hour of the week is Saturday at 6 p.m. (about 70). Late nights are quiet: only 6.8% of the week's pickups start between midnight and 5 a.m.
What does the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge cost?
As of October 12, 2026, MTA lists $7.46 for a car with a New York E-ZPass, $9.79 at the mid-tier rate and $12.03 by Tolls by Mail. See the bridge page for who pays the toll on a trip.
Are there relief stands in Whitestone?
NYC DOT's relief-stand data (updated October 1, 2026) lists none inside zone 252. The nearest Queens stand open to FHVs is on 64th Street in Woodside, about 3.8 miles away in a straight line.
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
- MTA Bridges & Tunnels: Tolls by vehicle type mta.info
- NYC Open Data: Taxi and FHV Relief Stands (DOT, vqu8-xef9) 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.