It’s been years now that I’ve owned a car. Six. I say “now” to refer to my New York years. The other years during which I’ve owned a car don’t satisfy the purposes of this account. Suffice to say, I have long been familiar with driving and parking a car that I have had the privilege of owning.

I would go so far as to say that I view owning a car as equivalent to a right of citizenship. Given current sensitivities surrounding climate change and car owners’ collective contribution of carbon dioxide, I recognize this may not be a popular notion. But I dare say it is not an uncommon one.

Don’t get me wrong. I take public transit to work. I’m not one of those people who gets into the car every time I have a craving for a deli ice pop. My car is a fuel efficient, mid-size Volvo. I use it for the occasional weekend trip, to pick up mounds of toilet paper and 60-pound bins of cat litter at the Costco, to go to Brooklyn’s Prospect Park ice rink for ice skating in the winter, and for periodic trips to the neighborhood mechanic for repair and maintenance. I’m no ecomaniac, but I’m proud to say the Volvo pretty much just sits. This is not the place to describe “it,” except to point out that the Volvo in question is not a piece of furniture. One does not claim as a right of citizenship a damask armchair or a Victorian table lamp inherited from an ancestor. Every Tuesday or Monday morning for the past six years, my fellow citizens and I have not arisen and shifted the armchair and the lamp from the front of the house to the back. And three hours later, put those pieces of furniture back to their rightful spots. Of course not. But car ownership requires us to do so.

Across New York City it is so. Drivers start their engines and move their cars from their prized spots for the good of all, so the cleared-of-cars side of the street can be cleaned by the street sweeper which never fails to come along and do its best to uphold civility and deter crime and promote good behavior, tidy streets being as essential to a civil society as timely garbage collection and tax-supported fireworks displays for fine-weather holidays.

This principle is being sorely tested now in my neighborhood in Brooklyn, where the authorities have seen fit to suspend what is known as alternate side of the street parking until further notice. A message, obtained and forwarded to neighbors’ inboxes and mail slots by some unknown citizen, states: “Regulations will be temporarily suspended until further notice as authorities install signs with new, reduced regulations.”