A recent post on Twitter by Govanhill Go! reminded me of the concept of desire lines. These are unofficial paths, like the one on the right in this photo, worn into the landscape by people who would rather use them than the official routes (like the one on the left). They're generally short-cuts and often indicate a failure by urban planners to properly understand and account for people's desires as they move through their environment.
@thisismyglasgow
I often wonder if this is because those doing the planning drive to work -- thus only use this type of infrastructure recreationally when aesthetics and a bit of a meander seem more important.
One if those example where a bit more diversity in the planners might help.
@adrinux I think that's very true. Pedestrians, cyclists, buses etc are all treated as secondary to car drivers, almost with the assumption that their time is unimportant so it doesn't matter how long they take to get somewhere. More diversity in planners would definitely help.
@thisismyglasgow I remember the quadrangle of the college I was at laying new paths - within 3 month preferred routes had been laid out, to the irritation of the administration 😄
There are many reasons why desire lines come to exist, but almost always it's because urban planners either don't understand, or ignore, the concept of Cost Path Analysis which helps identify not only the shortest, but the energetically cheapest and quickest way to move through a landscape, and so the most desirable one. Most planners try to deal with the appearance of desire lines by ignoring them, or worse, by blocking them off.
However, Cost Path Analysis also tells us if you make the cost of movement, in terms of energy and time, too great, people will simply not use a specific route..
So for example, if you built a motorway through a community and don't provide enough easy ways to cross it, parts of the community simply be come cut off and die because people will not longer be willing to travel to and from them,as we have found to our cost in Glasgow due to the construction of the M8 in the 1960s.
Similarly, if you make things like cycle routes and bus routes too circuitous and indirect, people just won't use them because the cost in time and energy is too much in comparison to other modes of transport.
Thus, while desire lines, such as the one in this photo, seem very inconsequential, they actually have a lot to say about how we should lay out and plan our urban environments, and about the unexpected costs and failures we can incur when we get it wrong.
Somewhat ironically, the example in this photo comes from outside the Riverside Museum in Glasgow, home to the city's quite brilliant transport collection.
@DrTCombs@thisismyglasgow Also, in (partial) defence of planners, some desire lines incorporate gradients that would be unacceptable to wheelchair users. The official paths must take their needs into account. There are 3 prominent desire lines in the vicinity of the Transport Museum. Gradients on 2 of them are not wheelchair friendly, particularly the one on the right.
@geomannie@DrTCombs That is very true, and I wouldn't suggest that desire lines replace existing paths. Instead, I'd say they should augment them. In particular, the rather steep, rocky one on the right of your photo is clearly used by a lot of able-bodied people because the low gradient alternative is really quite a long way round. Therefore, it eould make sense (to me) to keep the existing one, and add a new officisl path or steps along the desire line.
@thisismyglasgow
Our local park paved them over. I think the city actually waited for them to form before putting any paths in the interior, so they would know along which routes they should put paths.
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