Car service in Manhattan

Manhattan is the one borough where hailing genuinely works. Thirteen and a half thousand yellow cabs concentrate here, and below 96th Street on a clear afternoon you will rarely wait more than a minute or two.

So the honest question is when you should book instead. Our car service in Manhattan exists for the trips where "rarely wait more than a minute or two" is not a good enough guarantee.

When booking beats hailing here

Early flights. A 6am departure from JFK means leaving Midtown around 4am. Cab supply at that hour is a fraction of daytime.

Rain. The moment it starts, every cab in the borough is occupied. This is the most reliable rule in New York transport.

4pm to 5pm. Shift change. Drivers head to their garages in Queens and put their off-duty lights on. It is a genuine, structural gap in supply every single weekday afternoon.

Client collections. You cannot ask someone to hail their own cab and you cannot guarantee one will be there.

Specific vehicles. Four people with four cases need a minivan. A wheelchair user needs a ramp. A toddler needs a seat. None of these are hailable.

Theatre, arena and event departures. Ten thousand people leave at the same minute and every cab within four blocks is spoken for.

Where we pick up

Downtown — the Financial District around Wall Street and Broad; Battery Park City; Tribeca along West Broadway; SoHo; the Lower East Side; the East and West Villages; Chinatown; Chelsea along Ninth and Tenth Avenues.

Midtown — the Theater District and Times Square; Hell's Kitchen; Hudson Yards; Murray Hill; Kips Bay; Gramercy; Flatiron; Koreatown around 32nd Street; Grand Central and Penn Station.

Upper East Side — Lenox Hill, Yorkville, Carnegie Hill, and the Museum Mile along Fifth Avenue.

Upper West Side — Lincoln Square, the West 70s through 90s along Broadway, Columbus and Amsterdam, and Morningside Heights around Columbia.

Upper Manhattan — Washington Heights along St. Nicholas and Broadway, Hudson Heights, Inwood, and Marble Hill.

Harlem is covered in detail on its own page.

Connecting from transit

Grand Central Terminal — Metro-North's Hudson, Harlem and New Haven lines, plus the Long Island Rail Road via Grand Central Madison. The 4, 5, 6, 7 and S meet here.

Penn Station — Amtrak, New Jersey Transit and the LIRR, with the 1, 2, 3, A, C and E. Moynihan Train Hall handles most Amtrak departures now, and the two halves confuse visitors constantly; tell us which one and we will name the right kerb.

Port Authority Bus Terminal at 42nd and Eighth — intercity and commuter coaches.

PATH to New Jersey from 33rd Street, 14th, 9th, Christopher Street and the World Trade Center.

NYC Ferry and the Staten Island Ferry from Whitehall, Wall Street/Pier 11, East 34th Street and West Midtown.

We meet trains and coaches. Give us the arrival time and the terminal.

Trips we run most

Crosstown is the counterintuitive one. Two miles across the island at 5pm can take longer than eight miles up the FDR, because the avenues move and the streets do not.

Getting to the airports

The JFK flat fare of $70 plus tolls, surcharges and tip applies to metered yellow cabs between Manhattan and JFK in both directions. It is often the cheapest way to make that trip — genuinely, and we will tell you so. Where a booked car wins is certainty of pickup and a vehicle that fits your luggage.

Newark carries a $20 surcharge on top of the metered fare in a yellow cab, plus tolls, which usually makes a pre-booked flat rate the better value.

Traffic, tunnels and tolls

Congestion pricing. Entering Manhattan below 60th Street now carries a congestion charge, layered on top of the older $2.50 taxi congestion surcharge. It is in your quote. Trips staying above 60th are unaffected, as are trips between outer boroughs.

The FDR Drive is the fastest north-south route on the east side when it flows, and a car park when it does not. No shoulder for much of its length.

The West Side Highway / Henry Hudson Parkway is generally the more reliable of the two, and the natural route to the George Washington Bridge and northern destinations.

Tunnels. The Lincoln Tunnel to New Jersey is tolled and queues badly in the afternoon peak — the helix approach is the bottleneck. The Holland Tunnel serves Downtown and Jersey City. The Queens-Midtown Tunnel is tolled and usually the fastest way east.

Free bridges. The Ed Koch Queensboro to Long Island City, and the Willis Avenue, Third Avenue and 145th Street bridges to the Bronx. The RFK (Triborough) and George Washington are tolled.

Predictable closures. The UN General Assembly in September closes much of the East Forties for a fortnight. The New York City Marathon in November closes First Avenue and much of the route. The Thanksgiving parade shuts Central Park West and Sixth Avenue. Tell us the date and we will plan around it.

Venues, hospitals and destinations

Hotels — Times Square, Midtown East, the Financial District and Hudson Yards clusters. Name the hotel and we will name the entrance.

Venues — Madison Square Garden, Radio City, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Beacon Theatre, the Apollo just north in Harlem, and the Broadway houses between 41st and 54th.

Hospitals — NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell and Columbia, Mount Sinai on the Upper East Side, NYU Langone in Kips Bay, Bellevue, Lenox Hill, Memorial Sloan Kettering and the Hospital for Special Surgery.

Business districts — Midtown East, Hudson Yards, the Financial District, Flatiron and SoHo.

Universities — Columbia in Morningside Heights, NYU around Washington Square, Fordham Lincoln Center, Hunter and Baruch.

Booking a Manhattan pickup

Call (888) 652-7136 or use the form. Give us the building address and, for a hotel or a large complex, the entrance you will be standing at.

For a flight, add the flight number. For a train, the arrival time and whether it is Grand Central, Penn or Moynihan.