No matter what city you’re in, you’re likely to see pedestrians going about their daily lives; commuting, working, running errands, or simply just exploring the urban landscape. But pedestrians don’t just navigate cities – they can shape them too.
Desire lines are informal pathways that are created, not by planners or traffic engineers, but by the continual, repetitive movement of people through them. Typically shortcuts between two spots, desire lines tell you where people want to walk, rather than where they’re expected (or prescribed) to walk. Every time you’ve cut across a grassy area, stepped over a low fence, or crossed a road at anywhere other than a designated crossing, you have taken a desire line.
Desire lines are also referred to as social trails, kemonomichi (beast trails), trampelpfads (trample paths), chemins de l’ane (donkey paths), Olifantenpad (elephant trails), deviant paths, or free-will ways. My favorite description of them is from JM Barrie, who calls them “paths that have made themselves”. They’re so common that there’s an entire subreddit dedicated to them.
Forging a path
While they might represent the shortest path between two points – “the path of least resistance” – desire lines are not always hazard-free. For example, a desire line across a grass verge will be muddy and slippery in wet weather. A desire line that cuts across a road, rail line, or cycleway comes with a high risk of collisions. As a result, many desire lines are often ‘closed’ by local authorities, who install warning signs, barriers or both at the site, to discourage their use and to divert pedestrians onto a more formal route. Despite this, pedestrians often tend to continue using desire lines long after they’re no longer officially accessible.
Take this 2020 study from UNSW researchers. On three separate occasions, they surveyed and observed the behavior of pedestrians using either a paved footpath or the nearby dirt-track desire line in a public park in Eastern Sydney. The first time, both the paved path and the desire line were available for use. The second time was shortly after the team had erected signage on the desire line, labelling it as ‘closed’. The third time was when the closure signage had been in place for several months. They found that while the number of pedestrians using the desire line significantly dropped from stage 1 (both routes available) to 2 (initial closure of the desire line), the number of pedestrians using the desire line increased four times between stages 2 and 3 (long-term closure). This prompted them to describe this increasing use of a closed pathway over time as “persistent disobedience, or sticky behavior, among pedestrians.” In addition, they found that 40% of pedestrians surveyed at the site “had a strong preference toward the desire line, despite the fact that it is closed for pedestrian use.”
The researchers suggest that findings like these should prompt urban planners to rethink the location and orientation of paved paths, to more closely match the routes that pedestrians clearly want. And, they say, if planners wish to provide a more walk-friendly infrastructure, they should consider closely superimposing the paved path network onto the desire line network, where it safe to do so.
This approach has been taken on numerous university campuses across the US; most famously, at Michigan State University.
When viewed from above, one of MSU’s oldest sections – West Circle Drive – has a pleasing, spiderweb-like appearance. Paths between the main buildings crisscross and overlap, cutting the lawn into green wedges of differing sizes and shapes. There are few right angles to be seen. This is not the result of innovative design. Rather, when MSU was first under construction, the builders had limited access to paving materials, so they decided to leave the pathways until last. This left students with no choice but to walk across the grass to get to where they needed to go. Rather quickly, specific routes began to form, as the grass was worn down underfoot. When the time came to pave pathways on campus, they simply formalized the routes that had pedestrians had already laid down.
Public transit
Somewhere that the use of desire lines can be particularly prevalent is at or near public transport stations.
A recent research project, led by Dr Elnaz Irannezhad at UNSW Sydney, looked specifically at the walking behavior of pedestrians around two busy tram-and-bus interchanges in Melbourne, Australia. Irannezhad and her team were interested in the share of pedestrians who used desire lines, rather than marked footpaths, at various times of day, on different days and in a range of weather conditions. The researchers watched how pedestrians behaved at these stops, and noted details such as their perceived age, gender, walking direction and speed, and their use of either designated safe paths, or the shortest unsafe paths (the desire lines). To support their field observations, the researchers also developed an online survey that collected personal information on participants (e.g. their gender and cultural background), as well as their use of public transport, and asked them questions about different street crossing scenarios.
Amongst their diverse findings, they showed that at the station where two nearby zebra crossings were provided, passengers were more likely to use them than to dash across the road. At the station that required passengers to walk the length of the platform to access a safe crossing, unsafe behavior was significantly more common. In very windy, rainy, or sunny conditions, more people opted for the desire line. In contrast, anyone carrying a heavy bag or walking with a pram, small children or trolley were more likely to use the safe path than the desire line. In addition, the lack of sufficient street lighting made people more likely to choose the safe crossing in the very early mornings and late at night.
Irannezhad’s study echoes many others that have shown that careful, pedestrian-focused urban design at busy interchanges can help keep people safe – and moving smoothly – while using public transport. And this was a message that the team behind the redevelopment of one train station took to heart.
Nørreport Station in Copenhagen is the busiest train station in Denmark, as well as a key bus and tram interchange; more than 250,000 people pass through its underground halls every day. In the early 2000s, Nørreport was viewed as “an isolated chaotic island surrounded by traffic” that neglected the needs of pedestrians and cyclists. With 70% of all movement in the city happening on foot or bike or by public transport, this underserved population was a sizeable one, which made its redevelopment between 2009 and 2015 particularly challenging. According to Dan Stubbergaard, founder of Cobe, the architecture firm that led the process, desire lines were a starting point for the team, “In wintertime, organic pathways emerged in the snow created by people’s movements in and around the station, clearly showing us where there was a need for passages, shelter and bicycle parking.”
By tracking the way people moved through the space, the architects could identify the ideal locations for their planned sunken bike areas that could accommodate 2,500 bicycles and act as rainwater containment in times of extreme weather. Desire lines also highlighted the best spots for new entrances to the station, constructed from glass and topped with roofs that were planted with native plants and grasses.
For many urban planners, desire lines are a sign of failure; evidence that a public space hasn’t quite met the needs and wishes of the people who use that space. And there’s some truth in that. But for me, they’re also a reminder that our cities are uniquely human places, and the ones that function best are those that are safely navigable not by private vehicle, but on foot.
