Queens Car Service: Sedans, Sprinter Vans and Coaches, Home of JFK and LaGuardia

One borough, many different pickups

Queens covers more ground than any other New York City borough and is one of the most diverse places in the country. It runs from the towers of Long Island City on the East River to the beaches of the Rockaways, and from the co-ops of Jackson Heights to the detached houses of Bayside and Douglaston. A car service here has to work in all of it, not just in a single downtown.

That is why a Queens booking starts with the address rather than the borough. A pickup at a Long Island City residential tower goes through a lobby desk and a drop-off lane; a Jamaica hotel has a forecourt shared with airport shuttles; downtown Flushing has some of the most crowded sidewalks in the city; and in much of Astoria, Forest Hills or Bayside the chauffeur simply waits at the curb outside the house.

Living next to two airports

JFK sits on Jamaica Bay in the southeast of the borough and LaGuardia on Flushing Bay in the north, so for most Queens residents the airport is a local trip rather than a cross-city one. From the middle of the borough, around Flushing Meadows, LaGuardia is typically 10 to 15 minutes and JFK 25 to 40 minutes, and neither run needs a toll crossing.

Short is not the same as predictable. The Van Wyck Expressway into JFK and the Grand Central Parkway past LaGuardia both back up at the evening peak, and a terminal roadway can add its own wait. We set the pickup against the flight and the time of day, track arriving flights so a delay moves the chauffeur, and run hotel and crew transfers between the Jamaica-area airport hotels and the terminals around the clock.

Moving groups through Queens

Group travel in Queens has its own centers of gravity. Flushing Meadows Corona Park holds Citi Field and the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, and game days and tournament weeks fill the roads around them with groups arriving together. Long Island City has become a corporate district, with teams crossing to Midtown meetings in a 14-passenger Sprinter. Downtown Flushing's hotels and businesses host visiting delegations that need a mini bus to LaGuardia or across the river.

The vehicles follow the headcount: Sprinter vans for up to 14, mini buses seating 23, 29, 32 and 38, a 40-passenger charter bus and a 55-passenger motor coach, with several vehicles on one booking when a group is bigger than any one of them. Airline crews and delayed-flight passengers are usually a Sprinter job, moving between an airport hotel and a terminal on a tight clock.

Buses also travel Queens differently from cars. The Grand Central, Cross Island and Belt parkways are closed to buses and commercial vehicles, so a mini bus or coach runs the Van Wyck, the Long Island Expressway, the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and the Whitestone Expressway instead, and its loading point is agreed with the organizer before the day.

Crossing out of the borough

Queens is joined to its neighbors by some of the city's busiest crossings. Midtown is reached over the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge, which is free, or through the tolled Queens-Midtown Tunnel; the RFK Bridge runs from Astoria to both upper Manhattan and the Bronx; and the Bronx-Whitestone and Throgs Neck bridges carry traffic north toward Westchester and Connecticut. The Long Island Expressway heads east into Nassau and Suffolk.

Pickups anywhere in Queens sit outside Manhattan's congestion relief zone. It only becomes part of the trip if the drop-off is in Manhattan south of 60th Street, and in that case we confirm what applies when you book.

A Queens limo service without a stretch limousine

A Queens limo service, as most people now mean it, is a chauffeur and a quiet, spotless vehicle that arrives when it was booked, and that is what we run. There is no stretch limousine in the fleet. The cars are executive sedans and the Mercedes-Benz S550, the Cadillac Escalade ESV for up to 6, and the 7-seat Jet Sprinter; above those come the 14-passenger Sprinter vans, the mini buses and the coaches, each one driven by a chauffeur we employ.

A search for a Queens limo and car service and a search for a plain Queens car service both end at the same booking form, and the price follows the vehicle and the trip rather than the name. A couple flying from Forest Hills to LaGuardia book the sedan, a family occasion in Bayside takes the Jet Sprinter, a visiting delegation in Flushing fills a mini bus and a company outing takes the coach. Choose by headcount and luggage, and the fare for that vehicle is shown before anything is confirmed.

How booking works, from a sedan to a coach

The quote form asks for little: where in Queens the chauffeur collects you, where the trip ends or, for a day of stops, how many hours you want the vehicle, and the pickup date and time. Within about a minute it answers with an all-inclusive fare, tolls included, for every vehicle that fits the party, so a sedan to JFK and a mini bus to Citi Field sit side by side for comparison. Choose one, enter the passenger names and any flight number, and a card holds the booking.

Nothing is taken when you book. We charge the card 24 to 48 hours before pickup; the only exception is a pickup inside the next 24 hours, which is charged as soon as the card is on the booking. Dispatch is staffed 24/7, 365 days a year, so a 4 a.m. crew run from a Jamaica airport hotel or a late JFK landing is handled by a person on (718) 360-9383. A Queens limo service booking, whether it is the S550 for a client or the Jet Sprinter for a family, is made the same way, by the hour or as a flat fare.