Alternate-side parking returns for one week

Weeks of leaving cars parked on one side of the street throughout the city is expected to end — but only for a week.

Street cleaners are set to do a massive cleanup throughout the city next week, meaning cars will have to move.

"We've been suspending it quite a bit, obviously given everything that people are going through, and making it easier for people to stay home," Mayor Bill de Blasio said during his daily coronavirus briefing on Monday. "We have kept an eye on how our neighborhoods are looking, and we want to keep them clean and sanitary."

Alternate-side parking has been suspended in the city since March — the longest that policy has been curtailed since it was instituted, de Blasio said. Moving cars would mean people having to leave their homes — something that has been heavily discouraged since Gov. Andrew Cuomo shut down the state in mid-March.

de Blasio treated the alternate-side suspension as a week-to-week decision, watching closely trash and debris conditions on streets that would at some point require a street cleaner to come through.

The suspension was extended through the rest of this week, but on Monday May 18, alternate-side parking will be enforced once again. But only for a week.  Once the enforcement period ends on May 24, de Blasio will once again suspend alternate-side parking, but for two weeks through Sunday, June 7.

"The goal here is that we do that one-week cleanup," de Blasio said. "Hopefully that will last us a substantial period of time."

City transportation officials are reminding vehicle owners that all other parking regulations remain in effect, including no standing orders, paying for parking, and double-parking.

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