Alley may be paved, or unpaved, and a blind alley is a cul-de-sac. Modern urban developments may also provide a service road to allow for waste collection, or rear access for fire engines and parking. Because of geography, steps (stairs) are the predominant form of alley in hilly cities and towns. This includes Quebec City in Canada and in the United States Pittsburgh (see Steps of Pittsburgh), Cincinnati (see Steps of Cincinnati), Minneapolis, Seattle, and San Francisco as well as Hong Kong, Genoa and Rome. Some alleys are roofed because they are within buildings, such as the traboules of Lyon, or
French language in Canada français commun constitue l’armature essentielle et efficace" ("there is no salvation beyond the mastery of its [the community's] linguistic means, of which common French constitutes the essential and effective weapon"). In general, the same norms as in common French are applied. Only certain words have a different gender. Notable from a semantic point of view are the use of the word "pis" for the conjunction "and", where "et" would be used in Metropolitan French; the word "là" to punctuate the end of a sentence or after a word; and the use of "à" instead of the possessive "de", for instance,