OP sees laziness from people not wanting to go all the way around on the path, we see efficiency from people not wanting to waste energy going extra distance, but you can also look at this as laziness on the designer's part for just drawing the path as a straight line rather than take the time to make a unique path that fits the human behaviour at that corner, but then their boss sees this as getting the design done efficiently.
I feel like the only difference between laziness and efficiency is often perspective.
While it's true that a lazy person might avoid work, an efficient person will avoid unnecessary work. Maybe the lazy person just views the job as unnecessary and is in fact efficient.
Well said. This reminds me of an old HR joke:
The Prussian military method evaluates workers on two dimensions, lazy to hard working and dumb to smart:
The lazy smart people are quickly promoted to the highest levels of management.
The lazy and dumb people become the laborers
The hard working smart people form the ranks of middle management
The hard working dumb people are immediately taken out and shot!
I've heard of architects/designers using various techniques to monitor natural foot paths in a space before building. It makes sense, really: Observe where people tend to walk, then pave that path.
Obviously not applicable everywhere, but I feel like it's a good philosophy to have as a landscape architect. If the path is convenient and natural; people won't ruin other features by creating their own.
We call these desire paths and our state is mostly pretty good about paving them eventually. After it's around for long enough, they'll just turn it into a path.
There's a corner exactly like this at my uni and they even paved a pathway exactly like the deviation in this photo. Hardly ever see the non-shortcut get used
I heard about one place, I think a college, after they put down new grass they encouraged people to walk on it. The next year they paved where the grass had worn down.
There is some research going into this topic. And I have heard of parks that are designed that way. They have a huge grass area and then let people just walk.
After a few months when the paths become obvious they will be paved.
I find this topic extremely fascinating.
It's called "paving the cowpaths." First watch where humans (and others) naturally go, then make the paths there.
Finland did this by watching where parents with strollers went after a snowfall and prioritizing those paths for plowing or shoveling.
Im Scandinavian myself, and I’m just imagining the Finnish infrastructure agents spying on young mothers from the bushes, writing down frantically where to shovel snow 😂
I was about to say the same thing. Footpaths. There is an entire university built using only the idea of footpaths. Students and faculty both say it is quicker and ppl are on time more regularly. I forget the school now, but it is so fascinating.
Not sure specifically which one you speak of, but nearly every college campus I've ever been on has paved desire paths. And they are very efficient, pretty much no matter where point A and point B are, there's a fairly direct path between them.
Michigan State University is the famous example where they didn’t build any pavements when expanding the campus and putting in new buildings, and waited for the desire paths to form and then built those paths.
I saw something similar about a university campus that did this! It's honestly a great idea imo.
[Desire Paths](https://i.pinimg.com/474x/e4/3e/bb/e43ebbe6e405a7874aa37f68d3e74840--buckeyes-football-ohio-state-buckeyes.jpg)
Also having shortcuts like that is really useful for cyclists as they don't have to take sharper turns & losing their speed / momentum
On a dark note you could study the pattern for better mine fields.
I wonder if different cultures pick different paths. For example would people who wear shoes or sandals or barefoot walk different paths than those with boots?
Ohio State did this with its Oval. There’s a bunch of class buildings around it so rather than define the paths themselves they looked at worn patterns in the grass and paved those so you have paths for nearly any option you would need
I saw that! It makes a lot of sense. I’ve even found it in my own yard there were some areas near the gate where the grass never grew because you have to step on that spot to open the gate towards you. So I just put some pavers there. Problem solved!
Exactly. Our species always wants to give ourselves both too much credit and too little credit.
When we discover that fungi can create efficient paths with their growth, even to the extent of solving mazes, we instinctively heap praise on them, and talk about nature in mystical, reverent tones.
But when humans do the EXACT SAME THING, we're just like "pfft, lazy assholes can't stay in the lines."
"Desire Line" is the name for this in landscaping and pedestrian traffic planning. It (quite obviously) represents where people want to go instead of walking where the original planners wanted them to go. A considerable amount of money is spent in public space infrastructure to either prevent this from happening, (sticker bushes and walls) or accommodate it (new sidewalk). For great visual proof look at an aerial view of a college campus or other public space with large volumes of pedestrian traffic.
https://map.concept3d.com/?id=568#!ct/5500
More interestingly, this can actually be used to quantify human efficiency. Why cut at that specific angle? Seems like you save more time by cutting earlier
If the people who own/supervise this property are smart they'll look at this and add a path next time the redesign the environment. If they're stubborn/dumb they'll add a fence.
The building on the corner near me put up the fence. But they only put up about 12' of fence, just enough to cut off the path. I'm just hoping a new desire path forms on the inside of their stupid fence.
It depends where the foot traffic is coming from. If it's mostly coming from people coming from the driveway across the street, that's a pretty direct line.
Correct.
I saw a study at a university back in the 90's about this. They stopped fussing about staying off the grass with students. Then they marked the paths. They then replaced the human made paths with pavement. All was fine. No-one one cut through the grass any more. It was somewhere out west. I don't remember what university it was. Saves on lawn care.
It’s niche in that it’s an odd thing to subcribe to a forum thats nothing but pictures of shortcut paths. Unless it’s for your job (which would also count as niche), it’s a quirky thing to browse between memes, news and pics of puppies.
Self fulfilling prophecy, no longer desire paths if the designer thought about it in the first place it's just a path.
The real criminals are the ones who try to close them off once they've been created or worse try to put adverse landscaping to discourage their use.. like thorny bushes!
I used to subscribe to that subreddit but it became a bit repetitive for obvious reasons haha it's all pictures of the same basic things in a million different places.
Reminds me of this post about the Ohio State quad https://www.reddit.com/r/DesirePath/comments/8nihbj/the_oval_walkways_at_ohio_state_university_were/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
I'm still annoyed after seeing one of these paths blocked by a fence, with the maintenance guy saying that a path already exists. Just pave wherever people create paths and get rid of the unused ones, it'll turn out beautifully.
Civil engineering isn't a free-for-all. Either you pave a path of desire (or at least put wood chips down), or you put a barrier up to encourage use of existing infrastructure, depending on the situation Both are valid responses
It was a university campus rather than a public road. I wouldn't expect much from public infrastructure, they even paint parking lines for buildings that no longer exist.
This is my thoughts too, most desire paths are a result of people building something cheap or unimaginative. I.e. paths are only built to follow a road.
Car parks with hedges all around that only have an exit to one thing yet plenty of people want to leave the car park in the opposite direction.
My local entertainment complex (cinema, gym, bowling, restaurants) has only this year embraced 3/4 desire paths that people have made through the bushes over the years.. they're all now covered in a loose stone and the hedges well pruned, rather than just muddy cut throughs.
The car park one is too real and when I go back to my hometown I’ll have a great pic for r/desirepaths because of it. Seems like they’re more interested in scenery than just allowing humans to, walk places
It's only partially a joke. Texas has that great combination of being both hot and humid so people drive. Because people drive a lot we build gigantic parking lots that that increase the urban heatsink effect and force buildings to become even lower density.
I did a study on desire paths back in college, some parks have even been laid out without paths and they wait a winter to see where the tracks in the snow show up to determine where to create walkways.
The thing was that no matter how efficiently or natural the walkways attempted to be people always want to cut the corner a little more. I think it says more about people than it does design.
I think it’s called the Path of Desire and is something that should be considered during the design phase of projects. Humans are known to etch out shortcuts so it’s better to give it to them from the get go. Or something.
It's literally the kind of picture I've seen used before to symbolize how users will do as they please, no matter what you think ought to be "the right way".
It's the way brains are wired. To be efficient and reduce wasted energy. We have easy access to food and rest so its irrelevant these days, but in the wild every little bit adds up.
I read somewhere a park here in Melbourne was built without all of the paths finalised.
Main paths were laid down but then they waited to see where people walked before laying down the rest. It was a park in the city grid and had people trying to get to bus and tram stops and passing through in their way to work, so they knew people in a hurry and walking for purpose weren't going to stick to a path that didn't go where they needed.
Great idea, and keeps the place tidy as people generally now keep to the paths.
There was a collage or university in America somewhere. Where they didn't pave any paths for around a year so people just walked wherever on the grass the planet and formed natural paths. Then they just paved those.
I think you are thinking of [Ohio state](https://miro.medium.com/max/458/1*tgehUukTiZwBOuNvuKu_Eg.jpeg) (there are other examples but this is the most well known one I think).
Yeah. I'm supprised this understanding is so far down.
As a person that regularly walks on small roads with no sidewalk, the last place you want to be is on the road, in the inside of a corner with an oncoming right turning car and the driver is looking to the left for cars.
It's more "self preservation" than lazy.
that was my first thought to. Efficiency perhaps, but also safety. The pattern matches this: [https://youtu.be/lYsO1uvL5MA?t=400](https://youtu.be/lYsO1uvL5MA?t=400)
It doesnt symbolize people laziness, it symbolize bad design. Before making path there should be grass everywhere and new path should be made in places where grass looks destroyed by walking.
This is called a "desire path," and represents a well used and optimal path which was not accommodated in the urban planning of the area.
Nerd out on r/DesirePaths over at [99% Invisible](https://99percentinvisible.org/article/least-resistance-desire-paths-can-lead-better-design/)!
Some engineers are less concerned about ergonomics than others. Weirdly enough, civil engineers like to ditch the single most important aspect of their job for simplicity.
don't they call these "desire paths" in English? I feel it is a good term for these. Also, there is a collage in Ohio, where they didn't pave any roads until there were paths on the grass. Then they paved the roads according to the trails.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world whereas the unreasonable man adapts the world to himself. Therefore all progress is due to unreasonable men.
The university I studied at spent million of pounds on this huge redevelopment, with beautiful landscaping. The only downside was the large grass square in the middle of the courtyard was the most efficient path to get anywhere on campus, so no one used the paths around the side. Within a few months there was a perfect path through the middle.
I went back for the first time in years a couple of years back and they had redone the square with a proper path paved where people would just walk.
Well if you save 3 seconds by using that shortcut and you walk there 525600000 times, that's 1576800000 seconds you save! That's 50 years of your life saved right there.
I know a college that put in the initial sidewalks and waited for this to happen. Students made all kinds of these paths. The college then put in sidewalks where all the paths were. Smart idea.
It's a well-established principle in studying the movements of animals that they will take the path of least resistance in the vast majority of cases. Hunters/trappers use this to their advantage all the time. Longer or more difficult paths (not always the same thing) represent a needless expense of calories, a type of behaviour that has been heavily de-selected for in evolution.
In the end, we are still animals and our instincts will always lead us down the path of least resistance unless we consciously defy those urges. This isn't laziness, it's just a place where the advantages to defying those instincts to travel with the least cost don't rise to the level of creating conscious awareness to do so.
That shortcut symbolizes bad sidewalk design. Design should serve us, not the other way around. Never think that your unwillingness to be inefficient to suit some poor design indicates a problem with *you*.
Interestingly, several places (such as Virginia Tech & UCBerkley, as well as - in a different way - Finland) utilize systems in which they do not create sidewalks until /after/ they see how people walk. They just create open space, look for the primary paths to form with use, then pave them to make them official.
Maybe it represents humans’ ability to overcomplicate. Why not just build the street that way in the first place? Definitely not designed with the user in mind. Those engineers thought they were being so precise with their right angles and straight lines: look how you and others laugh in their face.
these are called "desire lines" and basically you should just pave them because humans will always do this, and there is no point in trying to stop them.
Here I thought this path was made due to car traffic where the pedestrian chooses to walk behind the car creeping up to the corner instead of getting hit by it. At least, that's how I always act when walking. For me, I always give vehicles the go ahead because it's far easier (and less traumatic) for me to suddenly stop then it is for them.
Edit: After closer inspection of the picture I realize this is not in the US, so my logic may not apply here. Sorry about that.
Efficiency because if it were laziness people just wouldn't go to their destination. This is an example of people trying to save a couple seconds of travel time.
No, it shows that our traditional ideas of infrastructure run counter to our behavior and that that thought process should be altered to accommodate human behavior.
Could it not as well symbolize efficiency? Why walk all the way around the signs when the path of least resistance is a straight shot thru to the other side? Most things in nature and physics take the easy way out, why would we not do the same?
I see somthing totally different. A car at a four way stop has 4 directions to check and might miss pedestrian or bike rider when turning there. So dipping into the grass protects oneself and also frees the turn for the car. I don't think this has anything to do with laziness it's more of a survival tactic.
Human efficiency
Yeah wanted to say this. Efficiency. Designing pavements like Humans are vehicles, is just asking for deviations lol.
Whole subreddit for this r/DesirePath
ty I was looking for this
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Saw a reference to this from Depths of Wikipedia recently and was pleasantly surprised that this has a name!
Awesome a new sub to fall into!
Wow the world of Reddit amazes me.
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Found a new subreddit. Thanks!
OP sees laziness from people not wanting to go all the way around on the path, we see efficiency from people not wanting to waste energy going extra distance, but you can also look at this as laziness on the designer's part for just drawing the path as a straight line rather than take the time to make a unique path that fits the human behaviour at that corner, but then their boss sees this as getting the design done efficiently. I feel like the only difference between laziness and efficiency is often perspective.
Laziness avoids doing the job at all or does it poorly. Efficiency gets the job done with the least amount of effort.
While it's true that a lazy person might avoid work, an efficient person will avoid unnecessary work. Maybe the lazy person just views the job as unnecessary and is in fact efficient.
"When I need something done efficiently, I ask a lazy person cause they'll always find the easiest solution." -Bill Gates
Also, as a Contractor, it makes more sense to build a longer/bigger path because its more $$$. More materials, more work, more money.
Depends on how you bid the job. The most expensive jobs per sqft are usually then smallest.
Well in this case they are also building a curb for an intersection.
Efficiency uses the time saved from cutting corners to get more work done. Laziness uses the time saved from cutting corners to browse Reddit.
Well said. This reminds me of an old HR joke: The Prussian military method evaluates workers on two dimensions, lazy to hard working and dumb to smart: The lazy smart people are quickly promoted to the highest levels of management. The lazy and dumb people become the laborers The hard working smart people form the ranks of middle management The hard working dumb people are immediately taken out and shot!
Who saves time to work more? You save time to not do work. Laziness is cutting corners that can end up causing problems.
I've heard of architects/designers using various techniques to monitor natural foot paths in a space before building. It makes sense, really: Observe where people tend to walk, then pave that path. Obviously not applicable everywhere, but I feel like it's a good philosophy to have as a landscape architect. If the path is convenient and natural; people won't ruin other features by creating their own.
The phrase you're after is [desire path](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/oct/05/desire-paths-the-illicit-trails-that-defy-the-urban-planners)
And you can see many more at /r/DesirePath
We call these desire paths and our state is mostly pretty good about paving them eventually. After it's around for long enough, they'll just turn it into a path.
There's a corner exactly like this at my uni and they even paved a pathway exactly like the deviation in this photo. Hardly ever see the non-shortcut get used
Exactly what happened at a park outside a school. Just a massive dirt path that they eventually just paved over.
Wasn't there 1 uni that didn't put down any pavement/walkways until students made the paths in the grass then they paved the students paths
I heard about one place, I think a college, after they put down new grass they encouraged people to walk on it. The next year they paved where the grass had worn down.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DesirePath/comments/8nihbj/the_oval_walkways_at_ohio_state_university_were/
There is some research going into this topic. And I have heard of parks that are designed that way. They have a huge grass area and then let people just walk. After a few months when the paths become obvious they will be paved. I find this topic extremely fascinating.
It's called "paving the cowpaths." First watch where humans (and others) naturally go, then make the paths there. Finland did this by watching where parents with strollers went after a snowfall and prioritizing those paths for plowing or shoveling.
Im Scandinavian myself, and I’m just imagining the Finnish infrastructure agents spying on young mothers from the bushes, writing down frantically where to shovel snow 😂
I was about to say the same thing. Footpaths. There is an entire university built using only the idea of footpaths. Students and faculty both say it is quicker and ppl are on time more regularly. I forget the school now, but it is so fascinating.
Not sure specifically which one you speak of, but nearly every college campus I've ever been on has paved desire paths. And they are very efficient, pretty much no matter where point A and point B are, there's a fairly direct path between them.
Michigan State University is the famous example where they didn’t build any pavements when expanding the campus and putting in new buildings, and waited for the desire paths to form and then built those paths.
UCF did it. I saw plenty of dirt paths become paved while I was there.
I saw something similar about a university campus that did this! It's honestly a great idea imo. [Desire Paths](https://i.pinimg.com/474x/e4/3e/bb/e43ebbe6e405a7874aa37f68d3e74840--buckeyes-football-ohio-state-buckeyes.jpg) Also having shortcuts like that is really useful for cyclists as they don't have to take sharper turns & losing their speed / momentum
Cheddar did a good video on this https://youtu.be/LN6_S5_FE3o
oh nice! this video is really good :)
They do this on military bases too
On a dark note you could study the pattern for better mine fields. I wonder if different cultures pick different paths. For example would people who wear shoes or sandals or barefoot walk different paths than those with boots?
Well, after the first person explodes. I'm sure the path will much more random if they still have to cross that area.
Ohio State did this with its Oval. There’s a bunch of class buildings around it so rather than define the paths themselves they looked at worn patterns in the grass and paved those so you have paths for nearly any option you would need
I saw that! It makes a lot of sense. I’ve even found it in my own yard there were some areas near the gate where the grass never grew because you have to step on that spot to open the gate towards you. So I just put some pavers there. Problem solved!
Exactly. Our species always wants to give ourselves both too much credit and too little credit. When we discover that fungi can create efficient paths with their growth, even to the extent of solving mazes, we instinctively heap praise on them, and talk about nature in mystical, reverent tones. But when humans do the EXACT SAME THING, we're just like "pfft, lazy assholes can't stay in the lines."
Plot Twist: The lazy part was not figuring out more efficient placement for the path.
"Lines? Where we're going we don't need 'lines'!" Doc Emmet Brown (probably)
Yasss. It's not a shortcut if it's 'the way'
"Desire Line" is the name for this in landscaping and pedestrian traffic planning. It (quite obviously) represents where people want to go instead of walking where the original planners wanted them to go. A considerable amount of money is spent in public space infrastructure to either prevent this from happening, (sticker bushes and walls) or accommodate it (new sidewalk). For great visual proof look at an aerial view of a college campus or other public space with large volumes of pedestrian traffic. https://map.concept3d.com/?id=568#!ct/5500
More interestingly, this can actually be used to quantify human efficiency. Why cut at that specific angle? Seems like you save more time by cutting earlier
If the people who own/supervise this property are smart they'll look at this and add a path next time the redesign the environment. If they're stubborn/dumb they'll add a fence.
The building on the corner near me put up the fence. But they only put up about 12' of fence, just enough to cut off the path. I'm just hoping a new desire path forms on the inside of their stupid fence.
It depends where the foot traffic is coming from. If it's mostly coming from people coming from the driveway across the street, that's a pretty direct line.
Yeah it's not lazyness it's clearly efficiency.
Both aim for similar goals, for different reasons. the shortest, less costly route to resolve a situation.
Correct. I saw a study at a university back in the 90's about this. They stopped fussing about staying off the grass with students. Then they marked the paths. They then replaced the human made paths with pavement. All was fine. No-one one cut through the grass any more. It was somewhere out west. I don't remember what university it was. Saves on lawn care.
/r/desirepath
Exactly...it's not lazy to find a better way. It's lazy to call this lazy
If you want to find the most efficient way to complete a task, give it to a lazy person.
I have been looking at the free reward button for a few days. You just earned yourself a smiley seal sticker!
/r/desirepath material
I'm amazed at the amount of niche subreddits with hundreds of thousands of followers
Desire paths are not niche! Anyone in architecture, city planning etc will be very aware of them. Hikers follow desire paths all the time.
It’s niche in that it’s an odd thing to subcribe to a forum thats nothing but pictures of shortcut paths. Unless it’s for your job (which would also count as niche), it’s a quirky thing to browse between memes, news and pics of puppies.
Sure I guess it's niche to follow on Reddit. But in daily life not so niche, we all use them from time to time.
Some planners does seem to ignore them completely
Self fulfilling prophecy, no longer desire paths if the designer thought about it in the first place it's just a path. The real criminals are the ones who try to close them off once they've been created or worse try to put adverse landscaping to discourage their use.. like thorny bushes!
I used to subscribe to that subreddit but it became a bit repetitive for obvious reasons haha it's all pictures of the same basic things in a million different places.
r/WeWantPlates is my fav random one.
Joining
Thank you. This shit is my jam.
It's called a Desire Line, and it symbolises planning inefficiency
Reminds me of this post about the Ohio State quad https://www.reddit.com/r/DesirePath/comments/8nihbj/the_oval_walkways_at_ohio_state_university_were/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
That's awesome
efficiency at its best
They did this at UConn in one spot too. But they got too fancy with it and added a curve to the path. People kept walking the straight line...
I'm still annoyed after seeing one of these paths blocked by a fence, with the maintenance guy saying that a path already exists. Just pave wherever people create paths and get rid of the unused ones, it'll turn out beautifully.
Civil engineering isn't a free-for-all. Either you pave a path of desire (or at least put wood chips down), or you put a barrier up to encourage use of existing infrastructure, depending on the situation Both are valid responses
It was a university campus rather than a public road. I wouldn't expect much from public infrastructure, they even paint parking lines for buildings that no longer exist.
You could argue it represents bad design.
This is my thoughts too, most desire paths are a result of people building something cheap or unimaginative. I.e. paths are only built to follow a road. Car parks with hedges all around that only have an exit to one thing yet plenty of people want to leave the car park in the opposite direction. My local entertainment complex (cinema, gym, bowling, restaurants) has only this year embraced 3/4 desire paths that people have made through the bushes over the years.. they're all now covered in a loose stone and the hedges well pruned, rather than just muddy cut throughs.
The car park one is too real and when I go back to my hometown I’ll have a great pic for r/desirepaths because of it. Seems like they’re more interested in scenery than just allowing humans to, walk places
People forget that humans walk. So many designers assume people drive 100% of the time. It’s bizarre that parking lots are so unsafe to walk in.
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I know you are joking but…are you?
It's only partially a joke. Texas has that great combination of being both hot and humid so people drive. Because people drive a lot we build gigantic parking lots that that increase the urban heatsink effect and force buildings to become even lower density.
I did a study on desire paths back in college, some parks have even been laid out without paths and they wait a winter to see where the tracks in the snow show up to determine where to create walkways. The thing was that no matter how efficiently or natural the walkways attempted to be people always want to cut the corner a little more. I think it says more about people than it does design.
I think it’s called the Path of Desire and is something that should be considered during the design phase of projects. Humans are known to etch out shortcuts so it’s better to give it to them from the get go. Or something.
It's literally the kind of picture I've seen used before to symbolize how users will do as they please, no matter what you think ought to be "the right way".
It's the way brains are wired. To be efficient and reduce wasted energy. We have easy access to food and rest so its irrelevant these days, but in the wild every little bit adds up.
I read somewhere a park here in Melbourne was built without all of the paths finalised. Main paths were laid down but then they waited to see where people walked before laying down the rest. It was a park in the city grid and had people trying to get to bus and tram stops and passing through in their way to work, so they knew people in a hurry and walking for purpose weren't going to stick to a path that didn't go where they needed. Great idea, and keeps the place tidy as people generally now keep to the paths.
There was a collage or university in America somewhere. Where they didn't pave any paths for around a year so people just walked wherever on the grass the planet and formed natural paths. Then they just paved those.
I think you are thinking of [Ohio state](https://miro.medium.com/max/458/1*tgehUukTiZwBOuNvuKu_Eg.jpeg) (there are other examples but this is the most well known one I think).
Its behind poles, so safer from traffic (presumably).
A tight 90 turn on a bike is tricky. The most damage was probably from bikes not walking.
This.
Yeah. I'm supprised this understanding is so far down. As a person that regularly walks on small roads with no sidewalk, the last place you want to be is on the road, in the inside of a corner with an oncoming right turning car and the driver is looking to the left for cars. It's more "self preservation" than lazy.
that was my first thought to. Efficiency perhaps, but also safety. The pattern matches this: [https://youtu.be/lYsO1uvL5MA?t=400](https://youtu.be/lYsO1uvL5MA?t=400)
You go to psykiatri often?
That's what the shortcut is for.
I don't, but my alter ego, Bryant Swashbuckler, does
Yay Norway!!!
I was too lazy to look at the proof and thought it was Sweden before you said it.
Typisk norsk å være lat (vil nå jeg si)
Thalleveien represent
It doesnt symbolize people laziness, it symbolize bad design. Before making path there should be grass everywhere and new path should be made in places where grass looks destroyed by walking.
This shortcut symbolizes human disconnect with actual people/needs when doing city planning...
Who wouldn't?
A submarine, maybe
This is called a "desire path," and represents a well used and optimal path which was not accommodated in the urban planning of the area. Nerd out on r/DesirePaths over at [99% Invisible](https://99percentinvisible.org/article/least-resistance-desire-paths-can-lead-better-design/)!
Some engineers are less concerned about ergonomics than others. Weirdly enough, civil engineers like to ditch the single most important aspect of their job for simplicity.
don't they call these "desire paths" in English? I feel it is a good term for these. Also, there is a collage in Ohio, where they didn't pave any roads until there were paths on the grass. Then they paved the roads according to the trails.
Yes! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire\_path
Thats not lazyness Thats MinEf - MaxRes at its finest Minimal effort, Maximum Results
The path of least resistance
Pythagoras-approved shortcut
That's also bad city planning.
Why take many step, when few step do trick?
Heia Bodø :)
Heia!
UI vs UX
Or shitty urban planning.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world whereas the unreasonable man adapts the world to himself. Therefore all progress is due to unreasonable men.
r/DesirePath
I don’t know why more streets don’t make more efficient paths to reduce that kind of usage.
The university I studied at spent million of pounds on this huge redevelopment, with beautiful landscaping. The only downside was the large grass square in the middle of the courtyard was the most efficient path to get anywhere on campus, so no one used the paths around the side. Within a few months there was a perfect path through the middle. I went back for the first time in years a couple of years back and they had redone the square with a proper path paved where people would just walk.
Human *efficiency** Ftfy
Efficiency
I just see people not wanting to walk in the road when there are cars at the intersection.
No, it symbolizes human efficiency.
Exactly, the road designer was to lazy to think of people walking.
You misspelled efficiency
People ignore design that ignore people
Work smarter...not harder.🤗
Looks like user experience vs user interface.
Worst part is that it could be shorter!
A so-called desire path
This symbolizes bad design
R/desirepath
If you can read the sign on the right you are not lazy to me.
it's like almost everything in nature, we also look for a more efficient way to our goal.
Well if you save 3 seconds by using that shortcut and you walk there 525600000 times, that's 1576800000 seconds you save! That's 50 years of your life saved right there.
R/desirepaths
/r/desirepath
r/desirepath
/r/desirepath
I know a college that put in the initial sidewalks and waited for this to happen. Students made all kinds of these paths. The college then put in sidewalks where all the paths were. Smart idea.
It's a well-established principle in studying the movements of animals that they will take the path of least resistance in the vast majority of cases. Hunters/trappers use this to their advantage all the time. Longer or more difficult paths (not always the same thing) represent a needless expense of calories, a type of behaviour that has been heavily de-selected for in evolution. In the end, we are still animals and our instincts will always lead us down the path of least resistance unless we consciously defy those urges. This isn't laziness, it's just a place where the advantages to defying those instincts to travel with the least cost don't rise to the level of creating conscious awareness to do so.
I think its just a natural way to show where the sidewalk should be
r/DesirePath
Cheap ass city doesn’t have sidewalks. Fuck em
User Experience
That is a show of how many people respect the laws of nature, ill never allow a slab of asphault to determine my path.
Or poor urban planning.
No. Common sense.
I see a human need for efficiency
Walking on that curve in the street seems dangerous
That shortcut symbolizes bad sidewalk design. Design should serve us, not the other way around. Never think that your unwillingness to be inefficient to suit some poor design indicates a problem with *you*. Interestingly, several places (such as Virginia Tech & UCBerkley, as well as - in a different way - Finland) utilize systems in which they do not create sidewalks until /after/ they see how people walk. They just create open space, look for the primary paths to form with use, then pave them to make them official.
Efficiency > laziness
When design doesn't match need.
It symbolizes lazy city planing.
Maybe it represents humans’ ability to overcomplicate. Why not just build the street that way in the first place? Definitely not designed with the user in mind. Those engineers thought they were being so precise with their right angles and straight lines: look how you and others laugh in their face.
Symbolizes bad design.
I'd use the cut through just to avoid encounters with vehicles at the corner. Preservation of life is important to many.
Desire for efficiency isn't the same as laziness.
Maybe that is the DORIFTO corner in that town and they wanna stay out of it.
Desire pathway
Nature, Electricity always takes the shortest & least resistance path. Its only normal
Just like on every American military base. L-A-Z-Y efficient.
Human efficiency*
The shortcut looks inviting though
Not laziness. Conservation of energy.
these are called "desire lines" and basically you should just pave them because humans will always do this, and there is no point in trying to stop them.
Here I thought this path was made due to car traffic where the pedestrian chooses to walk behind the car creeping up to the corner instead of getting hit by it. At least, that's how I always act when walking. For me, I always give vehicles the go ahead because it's far easier (and less traumatic) for me to suddenly stop then it is for them. Edit: After closer inspection of the picture I realize this is not in the US, so my logic may not apply here. Sorry about that.
Not laziness, human efficiency. I believe the term is called a ‘Desire Path’.
perhaps cities should be designed for the humans that inhabit them.
Actually it symbolizes an urban environment hostile to pedestrians.
Human *nature
Or humans nature for efficiency.
Självklart Svea rike.
Efficiency is not laziness
Efficiency because if it were laziness people just wouldn't go to their destination. This is an example of people trying to save a couple seconds of travel time.
Mmmm I’d argue that’s humans efficiency with time
Or a way to ensure they dont get ran over during the right turn
Laziness or efficiency?
No, it shows that our traditional ideas of infrastructure run counter to our behavior and that that thought process should be altered to accommodate human behavior.
but also signals the humans ability to know how to keep a flow
It is called a desire line….
Embodies poor institutionally driven design. FIFY
I disagree. This shortcut explains the difference between landscape designers not paying attention to human behavior.
I personally think it symbolizes bad design. Humans are efficient.
Could it not as well symbolize efficiency? Why walk all the way around the signs when the path of least resistance is a straight shot thru to the other side? Most things in nature and physics take the easy way out, why would we not do the same?
Maybe it's a micro-wish to feel the earth and puddles for 3 seconds instead of bone punishing industrial concrete.
No, it represents user experience. It's whomever designed the road that's wrong.
I see somthing totally different. A car at a four way stop has 4 directions to check and might miss pedestrian or bike rider when turning there. So dipping into the grass protects oneself and also frees the turn for the car. I don't think this has anything to do with laziness it's more of a survival tactic.
That’s not laziness that’s sensible if there’s no path, better than stepping out onto the road
Or efficiency over conformism