Taxi and car service in Queens

Queens is the largest borough by area and it does not behave like one place. Long Island City is a fifteen-minute walk from Manhattan across the water. Far Rockaway is a different world entirely, an hour on the A train from anywhere. In between sit two international airports, a stadium, a tennis centre and about 2.3 million people.

Our taxi cab service in Queens works borough-wide, and the single most useful thing we do here is get the distances right.

Where we pick up

Northwest — Astoria along Steinway Street, Broadway and 30th Avenue up to Ditmars; Long Island City around Court Square, Queens Plaza and Vernon Boulevard; Sunnyside along Queens Boulevard; Woodside near 61st Street and Roosevelt.

North-central — Jackson Heights along Roosevelt Avenue and 37th Avenue; Elmhurst near Broadway and Grand; Corona; East Elmhurst, which sits immediately next to LaGuardia.

Flushing and northeast — Downtown Flushing at Main Street and Roosevelt, Murray Hill, Whitestone, College Point, Bayside along Bell Boulevard, Douglaston and Little Neck.

Central — Forest Hills around Austin Street and 71st Avenue, Rego Park, Kew Gardens, Briarwood, Fresh Meadows and Jamaica Estates.

South — Jamaica around the station and Sutphin Boulevard, Richmond Hill, Ozone Park, Howard Beach, Woodhaven and Ridgewood on the Brooklyn line.

The Rockaways — Far Rockaway, Rockaway Beach, Rockaway Park, Belle Harbour, Neponsit and Breezy Point.

Connecting from transit

Subway. The 7 runs the length of northwest Queens along Roosevelt Avenue to Flushing-Main Street. The E, F, M and R follow Queens Boulevard. The N and W serve Astoria to Ditmars. The A splits toward Far Rockaway and Ozone Park. The J and Z run through Jamaica.

LIRR. Jamaica is the hub — nearly every branch passes through it. Woodside, Forest Hills, Kew Gardens, Bayside, Little Neck and Flushing-Main Street all have stations, and all of them generate last-mile bookings, especially at night when the local bus has stopped.

AirTrain. Jamaica and Howard Beach connect to JFK. Both are useful and both involve a transfer with luggage, which is precisely when people call us instead.

Trips we run most

Getting to the airports

The borough is too big for one figure to be honest, so:

• Astoria and LIC — LGA in 10–20 minutes, JFK in 30–50.
• Flushing and Bayside — LGA in 15–25, JFK in 25–40.
• Jamaica, Ozone Park, Howard Beach — JFK in 10–20 minutes. Effectively on the doorstep.
• The Rockaways — JFK in about 20 minutes over the Cross Bay Bridge. LGA is 45–70.

Newark from Queens is the trip worth planning around. Whichever way you go it means crossing Manhattan or looping through Brooklyn and Staten Island, and both are unpredictable at peak. Allow an extra 30 minutes over the estimate for a morning departure.

Traffic, bridges and tolls

The Long Island Expressway carries most of the borough's east-west traffic and earns its nickname reliably between 7am and 10am westbound, 4pm and 7pm eastbound.

Queens Boulevard is a genuine alternative when the LIE is stopped, but the signal timing is slow and the intersections are wide. Fine for a few miles, painful for ten.

The Grand Central Parkway is the route to LaGuardia and it backs up around the airport exits and past Citi Field on event days. There is no good alternative, which is why we build event schedules into the pickup time.

Manhattan crossings. The Queens-Midtown Tunnel is tolled and usually fastest into Midtown. The Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge is free, lands at 59th Street, and is often quicker off-peak. The RFK is tolled and the right choice for the Upper West Side or the Bronx. The Pulaski and Kosciuszko bridges connect to Brooklyn.

Cross Bay Bridge to the Rockaways is tolled, with a resident rebate that does not apply to for-hire vehicles. It is included in the quote.

Congestion pricing. Trips continuing below 60th Street in Manhattan carry the congestion charge. Trips ending on the Upper East Side, in Harlem or anywhere in Queens do not.

Venues, hospitals and destinations

Event venues — Citi Field, the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center (the US Open turns the last week of August and first of September into a logistics problem), Forest Hills Stadium, and the Queens Museum in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.

Hospitals — Elmhurst, Flushing, NewYork-Presbyterian Queens, Jamaica Hospital, Long Island Jewish Forest Hills, Mount Sinai Queens in Astoria, and St. John's Episcopal in Far Rockaway.

Universities — Queens College in Flushing, St. John's in Jamaica, LaGuardia Community College in LIC, Queensborough Community College in Bayside, and York College.

Everything else — Resorts World Casino near Aqueduct, Flushing's Main Street restaurant district, Astoria's Steinway Street, Rockaway Beach in summer, and Kaufman Astoria Studios.

Booking a Queens pickup

Call (888) 652-7136 or use the form. Give us the street address — Queens is 20 miles across and the neighbourhood name alone can be forty minutes out.

For a flight, add the flight number. For an LIRR connection, give us the arrival time and the station. For a Mets game or the US Open, book before you go, not when you are trying to leave with everyone else.