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Willets Point (TLC zone 253) is one of the emptiest zones in Queens for rides: about 31 pickups a day, 66th of the 67 Queens zones outside the airports. But the trips that do start here are long. Median app driver pay is $18.63 per trip, 4th-highest in Queens, and riders scatter all over the city rather than staying nearby. Activity is mostly on weekdays, with early-morning arrivals.
Source: TLC trip records for September 2025 to August 2026, covering yellow taxis, green cabs and Uber/Lyft trips, summed by TLC Help. With so few trips, one busy week can move a month's total.
Willets Point at a glance
On TLC's zone map, zone 253 touches only two zones: Flushing (92) and Flushing Meadows-Corona Park (93). TLC's lookup table labels it "Boro Zone". That label is for sorting data and is not a legal line (taxi zones explained).
A weekday, early-morning zone
Unlike most of Queens, weekdays are the busy days here: about 34 pickups on an average weekday, 32 on a Saturday and only 20 on a Sunday. Drop-offs peak at 6 a.m. on weekdays, and 30.6% of the week's drop-offs happen between 6 and 10 a.m. Pickups come later and are spread out, with a small weekday high around 3 p.m. That shape, arrivals early and departures in the afternoon, looks like work trips, though the data can't confirm who the riders are.
Month by month: rising into summer
Pickups were 1,116 in September 2025, then dropped to between 572 and 888 a month from October 2025 to April 2026. From May they rose each month: 1,045, 1,188, 1,563 and finally 1,725 in August 2026. Drop-offs followed the same path, reaching 2,346 in August.
Where trips go: everywhere
No destination dominates. Flushing is the top one at only 9.8%, followed by Outside NYC (5.3%), East Elmhurst (5.1%), LaGuardia (4.1%) and College Point (4.0%). Trips that stay inside the zone don't make the top ten. On the way in, Flushing sends 16.2% of the riders, and 4.0% come from JFK.
Fares and pay
The median app trip is 5.03 miles and 17.1 minutes, with a $23.29 fare and $18.63 driver pay. Pay per engaged hour is $70.25 (8th in Queens). Engaged time is only time with a passenger, and in a zone this quiet the wait for a request can be long. App riders tipped 4.7% of the fare, about $1.54 a trip.
7.4% of app pickups paid the Manhattan congestion fee, above the Queens middle of 3.1%. The 308 yellow taxi pickups were long trips too: a median of 9.42 miles and a $41.39 metered fare.
Pickup rules here
- Willets Point is in TLC's Hail Zone (Chapter 51), so yellow and green cabs may accept hails. App and other FHV drivers may only pick up riders booked through their base (80-19(c)(1); who can pick up where).
- None of DOT's relief stands is inside zone 253. The closest are 2.6–2.8 miles away in a straight line, in Jackson Heights (taxi only) and Woodside (relief stands guide).
- We don't list event or venue pickup rules here because we have no official source for them.
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.
- Willets Point: trip facts by sector — Key trip facts for taxi zone 253 (Willets Point, 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.
- Willets Point: when trips start, by hour — Average pickups per day in each hour in zone 253, 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.
- Willets Point: pickups by month — Trips starting in taxi zone 253 (Willets Point, Queens) each month, by sector.NYC TLC Trip Record Data (yellow, green, high-volume FHV), Sep 2025 – Aug 2026 · pulled Oct 12, 2026
- Willets Point: where trips from here go — Top drop-off zones for trips starting in zone 253, 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 11,453 pickups. 'Outside NYC' = zone 265.
- Willets Point: where trips to here come from — Top pickup zones for trips ending in zone 253, 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 14,524 drop-offs.
- Willets Point: when trips arrive, by hour — Average drop-offs per day in each hour in zone 253, 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).
- Willets Point: drop-offs by month — Trips ending in taxi zone 253 (Willets Point, 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 Willets Point?
Very few. TLC trip records show 11,453 pickups in zone 253 from September 2025 to August 2026, about 31 a day. Only one Queens zone outside the airports had fewer.
Why is app pay high from Willets Point?
Because trips are long. The median app trip from here is 5.03 miles and 17.1 minutes, with a $23.29 fare and $18.63 driver pay, both 4th-highest of 67 non-airport Queens zones. Pay excludes tips and tolls.
When do trips happen in Willets Point?
Mostly on weekdays. Drop-offs peak at 6 a.m. on weekdays, and 30.6% of the week's drop-offs happen between 6 and 10 a.m. Pickups are spread through the afternoon. Sundays are the quietest day.
Is Willets Point getting busier?
In this 12-month window, yes. Pickups fell to 572–888 a month from October 2025 to April 2026, then rose every month to 1,725 in August 2026, the highest of the year. The data does not explain why.
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
- 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.