[AndrewKemendo]

This is a good description, and similar to my favorite game to play in public with my kids: “Find the normal distribution”

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

[cogman10]

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.

[justsomehnguy]

> Some universities get it. They'll see the paths humans make cutting through the grass and adjust their sidewalks accordingly.

And the humans would cut through the grass again and the u. would adjust their their sidewalks again. And the humans would cut through the grass again and the u. would adjust their. And...

In my life I've seen enough of the absolutely stupid shortcuts which just doesn't even make sense - like a less than a meter in length to slightly cut a 90-degree corner.

My favourite example is a bus stop where people would gun the road across instead of using a zebra 30 meters to the left or 50 meters to the right. The best part is what there is a literal river (albeit small) on the other side of the road and the two passages over it are way further left after the crossing and way further right after the crossing - you don't even have any benefits of illegal crossing, nor in the time nor the walk distance.

[artisinal]

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire_path#/media/File:Desire...

[rustyhancock]

Those are reasons to have the path.

Other than the tree roots which lands a bit pearl clutchy to me, they aren't reasons to police people off their preferred route.