LaGuardia will tell you what a cab to Brooklyn costs and will not tell you how to get there on a bus. Its public transport page carries four destination panels, for Queens, for Manhattan and the Bronx, for Long Island and for Westchester, Putnam or Connecticut. Brooklyn is not one of them.
The taxi page is the opposite. It prices the borough by neighbourhood, at $28 to $50 for Downtown and Metrotech and $55 to $90 for Coney Island, and its estimate agrees with its own FAQ, which is more than can be said for the airport across the borough. What follows is the whole published picture, including the five bus routes that exist and the panel that does not.
What LaGuardia publishes for a trip to Brooklyn
One mode is priced and the other is unrouted. A yellow cab to Downtown Brooklyn is estimated at $28 to $50 and to Coney Island at $55 to $90, with the borough overall given as $28 to $90. No bus or subway route to Brooklyn appears on any airport page.
| Getting to Brooklyn | What LaGuardia publishes | How firm it is |
|---|---|---|
| Taxi to Downtown and Metrotech | $28-$50 | Estimate, and its FAQ agrees |
| Taxi to Coney Island | $55-$90 | Estimate |
| Taxi to the borough overall | $28-$90 | Estimate |
| Charges the airport lists for the meter | $3.00 at the start, $2.00 access fee, $1.00 at peak, $0.50 tax | Incomplete: the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission adds a $5.00 LaGuardia surcharge and charges $2.50 at rush hour |
| Bus or subway route to Brooklyn | Nothing. No Brooklyn panel exists | Absent |
| Uber or Lyft fare | Nothing; the airport sends riders to the app for exact pricing | Absent |
The meter carries $11.50 before the wheels turn
The estimates above are the airport’s, and its taxi page says they do not include tips, tolls or MTA congestion pricing. The fare itself is set by the Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC), which charges a $3.00 initial charge, a $5.00 surcharge on trips to and from LaGuardia, a $2.00 airport access fee on pickups, a $0.50 MTA State Surcharge and a $1.00 Improvement Surcharge.
Added together, those put $11.50 on the meter of a cab leaving LaGuardia before it moves, $14.00 on a weekday between 4 and 8 p.m., when the TLC adds $2.50 for rush hour, and $12.50 from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m., when it adds $1.00. Those totals are our sum, not a number the TLC publishes. LaGuardia’s own taxi page still lists $1.00 at peak and $0.50 at night.
Set against its neighbour, the estimate here is unusually well behaved. JFK gives Downtown Brooklyn as $90 in one table and $73 to $78 in the FAQ on the same page, a spread of up to $17 from one issuer. LaGuardia gives $28 to $50 in both places, so its number can at least be read twice and come out the same.
Five bus routes, and none of them says Brooklyn
The airport publishes five bus routes with the terminals each one serves and the rail connections each one reaches. Every published connection lands in Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx, Long Island or Westchester. Brooklyn is reached by carrying on, and the airport stops describing the trip before that point.
| Route | Terminals served, per LaGuardia | Where it connects |
|---|---|---|
| LGALink Q70 | B and C | Jackson Heights-Roosevelt Ave, 74 St-Broadway, 61 St-Woodside |
| M60 SBS | A, B and C | Astoria Blvd and stops along 125th St in Harlem |
| Q33 | A | Jackson Heights-Roosevelt Ave and 74 St-Broadway |
| Q72 | B and C | Junction Blvd and 63 Dr-Rego Park |
| Q90 | B and C | Flushing Main Street |
The Q70 is the one to know because it is free, and the airport treats it as the default: it is the route named for reaching JFK, for reaching Manhattan and for reaching the Long Island Rail Road. From Jackson Heights-Roosevelt Ave a Brooklyn-bound passenger is on the subway network, which is where the airport’s description ends and the MTA’s begins.
It is also the only one of the five the airport calls free, per LaGuardia, which matters against a cab estimate that starts at $28 to the nearest part of Brooklyn. Payment is the one part the airport does explain for the onward leg. It lists contactless credit and debit cards, Apple Pay, Google Wallet and the OMNY card, so no ticket machine stands between the bus and the train.
Two of those routes serve a terminal with no passengers
Read the terminals column against the terminal pages and a contradiction appears. The M60 SBS is published as serving Terminals A, B and C, and the Q33 as serving Terminal A only. On its own terminal page, LaGuardia describes Terminal A as currently closed to the public, with no commercial flights.
Both statements are the airport’s, on the same site, and they cannot both describe a useful bus service. LaGuardia’s Terminal A page, last updated on 28 July 2026, still calls the building closed, while the transit page keeps buses listed to it, which is where a leftover entry survives. The Q33 in particular is listed as serving one terminal and that terminal takes no passengers, which makes it the only route on the page a departing traveler cannot use as published.
The practical reading is to plan from Terminal B or C, which four of the five routes serve, and to treat the Terminal A entries as leftovers from an earlier arrangement. The same page also captions one of its own tables “Lond Island bus routes”, which is the kind of detail that tells you how recently anything on it was checked.
Choosing between a priced cab and an unrouted bus
For Downtown Brooklyn the cab is the only option with a number attached, at the airport’s estimate of $28 to $50 before tips and tolls. Nothing published lets that be compared against a transit fare from LaGuardia, because no transit route to the borough is published at all.
The comparison exists at the other airport and is worth borrowing for scale. JFK prices its own transit trip to Brooklyn at $11.75 including the $8.75 AirTrain, which is roughly a third of LaGuardia’s cheapest published cab estimate to the same part of the borough. The mode that is cheap at one airport is undescribed at the other.
For Coney Island the gap widens. LaGuardia estimates $55 to $90 for that trip, which is the second most expensive destination on its entire zone table after Staten Island at $61 to $98, and it is the destination with no published alternative of any kind. Anyone weighing the drive should read how the traffic behaves on these airport runs before accepting the lower end of that range.
- Take the free Q70 from Terminal B or C to Jackson Heights-Roosevelt Ave and continue on the subway. LaGuardia describes the bus and stops describing the trip there.
- Do not plan around the Q33. It is published as serving Terminal A only, and Terminal A takes no commercial flights.
- Count $11.50 in TLC charges on the meter before it moves, or $14.00 on a weekday between 4 and 8 p.m., and remember the airport’s estimates leave out tips, tolls and MTA congestion pricing.
- Expect $28 to $50 to Downtown Brooklyn and $55 to $90 to Coney Island, and treat both as the airport’s estimates rather than fares.
- Avoid a weekday pickup between 4 and 8 p.m. if the extra $2.50 matters, since that is the window the TLC sets for its rush hour surcharge.
- Bring a contactless card or OMNY. No ticket machine step is published between the bus and the subway.
Editorial note: prices, schedules, and policies on this page were checked against the official sources named in the text in September 2026. Treat every figure here as a reference point rather than a quote: operators change fares and hours without notice, and many vary by season, by event and by demand. Confirm the current price with the operator before you travel. Westchester Ride does not sell tickets or parking and does not accept payment to rank any operator.
Common questions about LaGuardia to Brooklyn
Six answers, each taken from what LaGuardia published in September 2026.
The airport estimates $28 to $50 for Downtown and Metrotech and $55 to $90 for Coney Island, giving the borough overall as $28 to $90. Those are estimates rather than fares, and the surcharges are listed separately on top of the meter.
Not one the airport publishes. Its public transport page carries four destination panels, for Queens, Manhattan and the Bronx, Long Island and Westchester, and none for Brooklyn. The practical route is the free Q70 to Jackson Heights and the subway from there.
By our sum of the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission’s charges, $11.50, or $14.00 on weekdays from 4 to 8 p.m. and $12.50 from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. The base is a $3.00 initial charge, a $5.00 LaGuardia surcharge, a $2.00 access fee, a $0.50 MTA surcharge and a $1.00 Improvement Surcharge.
The free LGALink Q70 from Terminal B or C, which the airport names for reaching the subway, Manhattan, JFK and the Long Island Rail Road. It connects at Jackson Heights-Roosevelt Ave, 74 St-Broadway and 61 St-Woodside.
The airport publishes it that way and also publishes Terminal A as closed to the public with no commercial flights. Both statements are on its own site, so the Q33 entry cannot be used as written and a departing traveler should plan from Terminal B or C.
With contactless credit or debit cards, Apple Pay, Google Wallet or an OMNY card, per the airport. It publishes no ticket machine step between the airport bus and the subway, and states that all MTA buses serving the airport are wheelchair accessible.
LaGuardia knows what Brooklyn costs and will not say how to get there.
Related guides
The same trip from JFK at $11.75, the run into Manhattan and the drive from Westchester are covered separately.
