One idea I’ve had toward ramping this blog back up to a daily experience would be to find and relate instances where other folks are thinking/saying/doing smarter things than I could ever come up with.

Cuz that happens every day. Pretty often multiple times in a 24-hour period.

Take yesterday for instance. I’m reading the Downtown Albuquerque News (DAN), in itself an idea smarter than pretty much any I’ve ever had, when I come across the following concerning *Dunkin Donuts trying to put in a drive-thru coffee monstrosity on the south side of the Avenida between 2nd and 3rd Streets:

“While our residents are open to new restaurant options, they have specific concerns about the adverse impacts of a drive-thru at this site,” Barelas Neighborhood Association President George Franco wrote in a letter to the EPC. The forthcoming renovation of Fourth Street (DAN, 12/8/23), the future Rail Trail, and other existing city designations for the area all “highlight the value of a human-scale, engaged streetscape which prioritizes accessible and transit/bike/pedestrian-friendly streets to maximize economic opportunity and equitable development in the neighborhood,” Franco added.

The argument’s implication is clear enough: Busy drive-thrus do not make for pleasant or particularly safe walking or biking conditions.

Rather than changing the property’s zone to something that would allow a drive-thru outright, Franco argued that Dunkin’ should instead ask for special permission under the current MX-H zone, which is designed for large-scale destination retail and commercial purposes and is already a common designation along César Chávez. 

A letter from the Barelas Community Coalition, meanwhile, largely echoed the BNA’s concerns: “While many welcome a Dunkin’ Donuts, the community is largely unified in both the preference for MX-H and for the proposed drive-thru to go through the conditional accessory use process,” it read.

In case it’s not already obvious, here’s where Barelas Neighborhood Association President George Franco and Barelas Community Coalition’s Cristina Rogers are SO much smarter than me. In addition to their ability to keep zoning codes straight (e.g., figuring out the differences between MX-H and MX-M makes my brain hurt), these two smart folks/entities stick to arguments about zoning, the Rail Trail, and equitable development w/r/t the project, whereas I would just go before the Environmental Protection Commission and say:

Drive-thrus are stupid and dangerous and we should simply outlaw them like they did in Minneapolis.

Which, while absolutely true, would accomplish nothing, as that’s not the EPC’s purview and the chances of ABQ outlawing drive-thrus are roughly equivalent to the chance my New York Mets have of winning this year’s World Series (for non-sportsball folks out there, there is zero chance). Can you imagine the outrage, umbrage, and good ‘ol rage resulting if we closed the Golden Pride drive-thru on Lomas east of University? Were talking overturned cars, city in flames, dogs and cats living together-level rebellion.

This socio-political reality does not diminish the fact that drive-thrus are stupid. My personally most despised is the Starbucks at the NW corner of Lomas and Washington.

This Streetview screengrab doesn’t do justice to the injustice that is this intersection. Not only does the frequently used bike lane “die” southbound on Washington, there’s now a steady stream of caffeine fiends entering/exiting the Starbucks drive-thru 47 or so feet from the light. For comparison here’s how the intersection looked coming southbound back pre-Starbucks in 2014:

Just an evidently abandoned office building of sorts ten years ago. And yes, I am showing the screengrab above primarily to point out the eternally sad death of the southbound bike lane on Washington. I guess the City feels turning the continuous lane striping into dashes metaphorically captures the tears cyclists shed when approaching this intersection, now including a stupid drive-thru. I don’t think this metaphor is technically MUTCD-compliant.

But getting back to people smarter than me, by couching objections to a drive-thru on zoning grounds, etc. instead of “drive-thrus stupid,” these Barelas organizations stand a decent chance of successfully blocking this stupid drive-thru. Moreover, as coup de grâce, these smart folks also employ the current chef’s kiss of current ABQ planning and development argumentation: The Rail Trail.

This Rail Trail, at least at this point in its project infancy, is proving to be somewhat like Albuquerque Rapid Transit. What we’re coming to realize now is that ART really had almost nothing to do with the bus and everything to do with the roadway infrastructure improvements enabled because of the bus project. Do you think we EVER would have gotten the extent of traffic calming and pedestrian amenities on Central Ave. if not for ART? Of course not. We’re still trying to document and finalize the numbers, but pretty much everyone agrees ART has saved some still to be determined number of lives. Bus or no bus.

Likewise, at least up to now, arguing something isn’t aligned with the Rail Trail carries serious argumentational weight, despite the fact the Trail is still nebulously unfinalized in exactly what and where it’s gonna be. Again from the DAN story:

Dunkin’s reassurances aside, the prospect of all those vehicles entering the property may also not sit well with the city’s effort to construct the Rail Trail in the area. Rail Trail Project Manager Ciaran Lithgow said at the neighborhood meeting that routing options included both the north and south side of the street but that a popular drive-thru would make the south side less appealing because of potential conflicts between vehicles, pedestrians, and bicyclists.

“I’m not entirely sure that a drive-thru next to the Rail Trail is entirely a complimentary use,” Lithgow said.

Playing the Rail Trail Card seems to have already paid off in blocking Quick Trip from its plan for a truck stop on 12th Street south of I-40. Some of us not terribly smart folks are hoping the Rail Trail Card might end up get us bike/ped bridges over crossings at, for instance, Rio Grande Blvd. and Soto/Hollywood, but like bad poker players, that’s probably overplaying our hand. We’ll see.

And while we’re talking Rail Trail, the Avenida, and ideas from not terribly smart folks (i.e., me), let’s take a look at the nebulous latest routing proposed for the Trail.

Saving you a squint, the “alignment not finalized” above would take the Trail from the Bosque/Riverside/whatever its name is Trail east at the Avenida through NHCC and up 2nd Street under the Guadalupe Overpass (i.e., Avenida bridge over the train tracks). Thus, the Trail is proposed to have a short stretch along the Avenida.

Why?

That doesn’t sound like a good idea, as least to this not terribly person smart person. I could joke and ask “but wouldn’t that involving walking/rolling across a drive-thru?” but the more serious ask is: “Doesn’t walking/rolling along the Avenida suck, regardless of whether there’s a drive-thru or not?

Instead shouldn’t the most southern stretch of the Trail look something like this?

Apologies, as always, for the delightful crudity of my graphics. To save you a squint (and for those who don’t make it out to part of town much), the idea would be to:

1. Take the currently proposed route down the Bosque/Riverside/whatever Trail to the NHCC and keep it going south to the southern edge of the City ballfields at Barelas Railroad Park;
2. Turn east at what is either a Conservancy or AMAFCA gate and dirt road; and,
3. Turn back north on the western side of 2nd Street past the ballfields, Conservancy offices, El Modelo, etc. and under the Guadalupe Overpass.

This variant would still get users to the NHCC, and adds not only the fun of walking/rolling alongside the ballfields but the veritable olfactory orgasm experienced when ambling alongside the Bueno Foods plant during chile roasting season.

If you haven’t had the chance, you gotta take this stretch of the Trail in August/September. I am not kidding when I say we could be charging tourists $10 to walk this section during roasting season. Heck, we could charge locals $5 to do so.

One other benefit to this not terribly smart idea, besides the not having to walk/roll along the Avenida, is that most of the parcels on the west side of 2nd Street section going back north are publicly owned by the City and Conservancy. Also, just imagine all those tourists ambling down the Rail Trail past Bueno during roasting season, watching the softball players huff and puff, and then coming across this on the way back to the Rail Yards:

Now that’s olfactory orgasm economic development!

I probably don’t have to tell you that I’m hoping smarter folks such as those in Barelas will take this routing idea, couch it much more eloquently than I, and have tourists eating infinite numbers of El Modelo carne adovada burritos in the not-too-distant, but still nebulous, future.

*I know the official company name is now Dunkin’ but that is so stupid, and such a terrible use of an apostrophe, that I refuse to use it. Full Disclosure: I still call the school TVI and my credit union New Mexico Educators’ Federal Credit Union.