Alternate-side parking and a tire change: the 2026 calendar

No other city we serve publishes anything like this. New York DOT maintains a list of the days on which alternate-side parking rules are suspended, in fourteen languages and as a downloadable calendar file, and it names them one by one.

For anyone whose car lives at a kerb, that list is the answer to "when is the easy day to get this done".

What the rule is

NYC DOT, verbatim:

Alternate Side Parking (ASP) regulations allow for street cleaning. The City of New York suspends ASP rules on specific legal and religious holidays. The City also suspends ASP rules due to weather and emergencies.

Two different kinds of suspension, then. One is on a published calendar a year ahead. The other is declared when it is declared.

The 2026 calendar: 42 dates

The published 2026 suspension calendar lists 47 holiday entries falling on 42 distinct dates (DERIVED by de-duplicating the published list). Five dates carry two holidays each: 16 February, 18 February, 2 April, 3 April and 9 April.

The named days are not the federal holiday calendar. The 2026 list includes Three Kings' Day, Lincoln's Birthday, Lunar New Year's Eve and Lunar New Year, Losar, Purim, both days of Idul-Fitr, four separate Passover days, Orthodox Holy Thursday and Good Friday, the Solemnity of the Ascension, both days of Shavuoth, both days of Idul-Adha, Tisha B'Av, the Feast of the Assumption, both days of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, two days of Succoth, Shemini Atzereth, Simchas Torah, All Saints' Day, Diwali and the Immaculate Conception.

Seven of the entries are marked major legal holidays, and those days work differently. NYC DOT, verbatim:

On major legal holidays, you can park at a No Stopping, No Standing, or No Parking sign if the rule is not normally in effect seven days a week (for example, No Standing Anytime). Otherwise, you cannot. Parking meter regulations are also suspended on major legal holidays. On all other holidays, only street cleaning rules are suspended. All other regulations remain in effect.

Read that carefully, because the distinction is where people get ticketed. On the other 35 dates, only street cleaning is suspended. Everything else — meters, No Standing, No Parking — still applies.

The weather half, which is not on any calendar

NYC DOT again, verbatim: "The City also suspends ASP rules due to weather and emergencies. Check NYC 311 or Notify NYC for emergency suspension information."

How large those can get is recorded in the city's own dated notices, still on the page on 2026-09-20. Dated Wednesday, January 28, 2026, verbatim:

ASP Status: ASP is suspended through Saturday, February 14 to facilitate ongoing snow operations. Meters remain in effect, except on Sundays. The next scheduled ASP suspension is Monday, February 16 for Washington's Birthday (Pres. Day) and Lunar New Year's Eve.

And dated Monday, March 2, 2026, verbatim:

ASP Status: ASP is suspended today to facilitate snow operations. The next scheduled ASP suspension is Tuesday, March 3 for Purim. Parking meters are in effect.

28 January to 14 February inclusive is eighteen consecutive days (DERIVED by counting the dates in the city's own notice). Eighteen days on which the street-cleaning rule did not require a car to move.

Note the sentence that appears in both notices in different words: meters remain in effect. A suspension of alternate-side parking is not a suspension of metered parking, and those two are constantly confused. Plan around the actual rule, not the relief you assume comes with it.

That was the snowiest winter in eleven

The same winter the city was suspending street cleaning for snow operations, Central Park recorded 43.5 inches of snowfall over the July-to-June 2025-26 season — the highest of the eleven seasons from 2015-16 to 2025-26 at that station, and 1.69 times the 1991-2020 normal of 25.8 inches (DERIVED: 43.5 ÷ 25.8). The eleven seasons in order, in inches: 32.8, 30.2, 40.9, 20.6, 4.8, 38.6, 17.8, 2.3, 7.5, 12.9, 43.5.

Which month to plan around, on the 1991-2020 normals: February is the snowiest at 9.2 inches, ahead of January at 7.0 and December at 4.8. March still carries 3.9. The city records 65.6 days a year with a minimum at or below 32F.

Why any of this matters for a tire visit

Here is the argument, in our own voice, and we are going to be careful to say which parts are measured and which are our reasoning.

Measured. A mobile fit needs level, paved, legal ground with room to work at one corner of the car — SimpleTire publishes the same requirement list verbatim: "Level ground", "3ft perimeter", "Paved road", "Vehicle keys", "Wheel lock key (if applicable)", "Garage access (if applicable)". Measured: 55.3 percent of New York City households have no vehicle, 31.9 percent have exactly one, and citywide only 9.1 percent of housing units are one-unit detached. Measured: 42 distinct dates in 2026 carried an ASP suspension.

Our reasoning, not a finding. A car that does not have to move for street cleaning is a car that can sit still while somebody works on it, which makes a suspension date a sensible day to book a kerbside job. Nothing we have measures that effect, and we are not going to attach a number to it or call it research. It is a scheduling suggestion.

What we will say firmly is the operational part. Tell us at booking which kind of space the car is in, whether the block has alternate-side signs, and on which side and at which hours. If it turns out on the day that the space is not safe to work in, that visit is not charged.

Practical scheduling, three ways

Pick a suspension date. Easiest for a kerbside car. Check the current calendar on the DOT page rather than a list copied from anywhere, including this one — dated religious observances move year to year.

Pick the cleaning window itself. On an ordinary alternate-side block the car has to be off that side for a defined period; on the other side of the same street, that same period is often the quietest it gets. Local knowledge beats a calendar here.

Use the workplace lot. Level, paved, private, and the car is going to sit there anyway. Flat tire at work and mobile tire service when you have no driveway.

The one seasonal rule New York actually sets for tires

Not snow tires. New York State mandates none: a literal search of the current text of Vehicle and Traffic Law section 375 returns the word "snow" eight times and not one is a tire requirement — wipers, plough-blade headlamps, a farm-tractor exemption, defrosters, and warning lights on municipal ice-and-snow vehicles. The string "snow tire" does not appear in section 375 at all, and 15 NYCRR Part 79 mentions no winter tire category either.

What the state does set is a dated stud window. VTL 375(35-a) makes it unlawful to operate with metal objects protruding from the tread, then exempts studs within stated dimensions "except that no vehicle equipped with such tires, other than school buses and state or municipally-owned vehicles, may operate on a public highway during the period from the first day of May to the fifteenth day of October, inclusive." Read as a window: studs are lawful on a private car from 16 October to 30 April and unlawful from 1 May to 15 October.

That gives a winter-set changeover two real dates to sit between. All-season versus all-weather versus winter tires covers the choice, and seasonal tire changeover is the service.

Our price

Seasonal changeover is $350 for a set already on its own wheels and $390 for loose tires that have to be mounted on the same wheels and balanced, at your address. Off-season storage is resold through local partners at $150 a set a season and no metro qualifies yet, so in New York the off-season set stays with you.

Mobile puncture repair is $145 for the first tire and $50 for each additional tire in the same visit. No separate call-out fee. We supply the tires we fit; no customer-supplied tires and no used tires, with one exception — your own off-season set on a seasonal swap, which we check for tread and age at the visit and refit or tell you is finished.

Mobile tire repair in New York · Failed a New York inspection on tread · Pothole damage in 2026 · What it costs here · Available now · Our New York service area

Questions people ask

• How many days is alternate-side parking suspended in 2026? The published holiday calendar carries 47 entries on 42 distinct dates (DERIVED by de-duplicating the list), and the city suspends the rules for weather and emergencies on top of that.
• Does a suspension mean I can ignore the meter? No, except on the seven major legal holidays, where DOT says "Parking meter regulations are also suspended". On every other suspension date, "only street cleaning rules are suspended. All other regulations remain in effect."
• How long can a weather suspension last? The longest recorded in the city's own 2026 notices ran 28 January to 14 February — eighteen consecutive days (DERIVED from that notice), "to facilitate ongoing snow operations".
• Does New York City require snow tires? New York State requires none: "snow tire" does not appear in Vehicle and Traffic Law section 375, and Part 79 has no winter tire category. We have not been able to read the text of the city's own traffic rules on snow emergencies at source, so we make no claim about them either way. Check with NYC DOT before a declared snow emergency.
• When are studded tires legal here? VTL 375(35-a) bars them on a private car "from the first day of May to the fifteenth day of October, inclusive", which leaves 16 October to 30 April.
• Is it genuinely easier to book on a suspension day? In our view, yes, because the car does not have to move. That is reasoning from the rule, not a measurement, and we are not going to dress it up as one.
• What if my block's space still will not work? Tell us and we will say so before you book. If we arrive and the space is unsafe, the visit is not charged.