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More Fun With Taxi GPS: Where The Cabs Are
By
Jen Chung
Published Apr 3, 2010
Modified Apr 3, 2010
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By
Jen Chung
Published Apr 3, 2010
Modified Apr 3, 2010
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Last week, the NY Times took taxi GPS data and offered up many fun facts about Manhattan congestion—for instance, Wednesday seems to be the most congested day of the week (on average). Today, the Times offers a cool interactive map showing where taxis were hailed, based on taxi GPS from last year: "The most popular corners to catch a yellow cab in Manhattan can now be pinpointed, at any hour of any day of the week, thanks to a record of 90 million actual taxi trips that have been silently tracked by the city."
Naturally, at midnight on Saturday, the big pickup spots are downtown, in the Meatpacking District and Lower East Side (there are also many pickups in the Chelsea club area—27th Street—around 3 a.m. on Sunday), while on a weekday morning, they are by Penn Station, Grand Central Terminal and the Port Authority:
Over all, the No. 1 place to get a cab in the five boroughs, according to statistics compiled by Sense Networks for The New York Times, is Penn Station, one of the busiest train stations in the world. (The airports were not included in the data.)
Columbus Circle, with its popular shopping mall, its jumbo Whole Foods store and its entrance to Central Park, ranks second. Next are the Port Authority and Grand Central.
Less obvious spots also show up in the top 10, including Lexington Avenue at 86th Street (near an express subway stop) and Avenue of the Americas at 23rd (at the PATH train), along with the southeast corner of Central Park by the Apple Store and F. A. O. Schwarz.
The Times also notices that York Avenue at 72nd Street, and Tenth Avenue at 43rd have many cab hails on Monday mornings—suggesting that residents (there are all those new condos in Hell's Kitchen, by 11th and 10th Avenues) far from subways decide to take the cabs instead.
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Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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