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
The blind leading the blind appears in Horace: "" ("the blind leader of the blind"). Horace was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (27 BCE – 14 CE) The saying appears several times in the Bible with similar stories appearing in the gospels of Matthew, Luke and Thomas, possibly via the Q source. Sextus Empiricus (160 – 210CE) compares ignorant teachers and blind guides in Outlines of Scepticism: The phrase appears in Adagia, an annotated collection of Greek and Latin proverbs, compiled during the Renaissance by Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus. The first edition, titled "Collectanea Adagiorum", was published in Paris