Universities seem like a social testing ground for the desired path problem.
Some universities get it. They'll see the paths humans make cutting through the grass and adjust their sidewalks accordingly.
Others don't and instead being a futile effort to penalize and police the grass rather than just giving into the human nature to want a straight line path.
It’s not just policing the grass. You have to be ADA compliant, you can’t have inclines too steep, you need sight lines with other traffic. There are many reasons a path is created somewhere.
Just look at the picture below and how the desire path could end up hurting the tree roots. You would also have a decreased sight line with traffic coming from the right.
I once had a conversations with a painter at a university. They do the women's bathrooms every year whereas they do the men's as needed. Women have nails and rigs and purses with metal hardware and big fancy buttons and clasps and stuff on their jackets.
I wouldn't be surprised if subway wear on the back wall is gonna be dominated by people carrying things. People carrying things tend to filter there because you can put them down beside you more securely and a lot of those people already have backpacks so it's nice to lean against the wall.
Of course the most frequent ones are on door handles or pushes. Then usually parking space oil stains around an entrance. Etc…
Desire paths are also generally very tight gaussians.
You can learn a lot about pattern of life just by looking at how humans wear down the world
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