ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – No Albuquerque City Council seats are up for an election this year, but that doesn’t mean our city leaders aren’t busy Monday night.

Their meeting is just getting started, and the council will have to decide the fate of a new Dunkin’ Donuts in one of Albuquerque’s oldest neighborhoods.

Barelas neighborhood leaders say they welcome the coffee and donuts, but they’re not thrilled about the traffic that comes with, and how developers are planning to manage all those extra cars.

Albuquerque city planners already approved a zoning change and the proposal to build a new Dunkin’ Donuts drive-thru at the Avenida Cesar Chavez and Third Street intersection.

The intersection is right at the base of the bridge that goes over the railroad tracks. It’s stretch of road is already prone to crashes and other traffic incidents.

Based on city documents, it appears developers want all of the Dunkin’ traffic to enter from eastbound Cesar Chavez and exit onto the Third Street curve right at the light. That’s where neighborhood leaders are putting their foot down.

“You’re gonna have lots of people cutting aggressively across multiple lanes right before the intersection, or you’re going to have them cutting across the really tight, like 90 degree curve as it turns to go to some other locations. Now, people cutting coming out, cutting across, moving traffic to make it to the other side. And so, unfortunately, their current plan for how to handle that is, ‘Good luck,’” said Sean Potter, a Barelas Neighborhood Association board member. 

According to city documents, developers are planning to add stop signs. But community leaders say that’s not enough, and they believe their concerns are falling on deaf ears.

“I just feel that they should have had an updated traffic study. Because we live in the neighborhood, we drive those streets every single day, and we see what’s going on first hand. So yeah, it’s not going to be safe at all,” said Joann Garcia, president of the Barelas Neighborhood Association. 

Neighborhood leaders are not opposed to the project, they just want developers and city leaders to take their concerns seriously.

Albuquerque city councilors are expected to decide whether or not to uphold the neighborhood association’s appeal, which will either let the project move forward as is or force it back into the planning process.