Return with us now to the thrilling multi-modal roadway infrastructural days of 1987.

“What?!?” you may be asking in an exclamatory manner.

You may also be adding, perhaps unnecessarily, “Isn’t 1987 and thereabouts pretty much the cause of all that sucks regarding multi-modal infrastructure in this country?” Yes, you would be generally correct in that question that isn’t really a question.

Still, there are late 80s anomalies one can find (in this very town!) if one is willing to venture into areas no self-respecting multi-modal transportation activist would ever go without a Groucho Marx fake nose and glasses. I refer, of course, to subdivisions on ABQ’s West Side.

It is there that your humble blogger found the obscure piece of 80s arcana we refer to as “The Secret Alleys.”

“What the hell is that,” you might ask because you’ve never seen it here or anywhere? Understandable. Above is a confluence of three mini-alleys running alongside houses somewhere in the West Side. I won’t even tell you where it is. Because…yeah, it’s: 1. A secret because I say so; 2. I’m not 100% sure the adjacent homeowners living in these homes built in 1987 have ever really loved The Secret Alleys. I really hope they do, but I don’t know.

Let’s return to the confluence as we confluence some reflections on this bit of 80s wonder:

In the above, I see a time largely lost to us now in 2023 Albuquerque. I see kids walking to school. I see kids able to walk/ride short distances, free from drivers, to each others houses to play “The Legend of Zelda” on their Nintendo. Or to ride bikes around the subdivision. Or to walk to the edge of the subdivision to that place where they’re just now building houses and you can find really good dirt clods for dirt clod fights. Or wherever, because you’re a kid and you just have to be home for dinner and/or before the streetlights come on.

That’s what I see. We multi-modal activists types bash the West Side all the time (humble blogger sheepishly raises hand). Yet, there are nuggets amid the sprawltasticness. Like The Secret Alleys.

P.S.: Your humble blogger has finally, this time for realzzz ended his relationship with the website formerly known as Twitter. After many jumps off the ledge, cheating with fingernails etched into the window sill, the new “Terms of Service” lifted my straining fingers as I dangled and I am now forever free from the rampantly autocratic Bird. This being the case, with folks on that site no longer finding posts, anyone willing to help send these posts along via whatever means found easy and ethically sound is appreciated. To quote John Belushi’s Bluto from “Animal House,” “Heck, it don’t cost nothing.”