By Tom Cowie
One of the small pleasures of walking, as opposed to riding a bike or driving a car, is that there is very little stopping you from taking a shortcut when an advantageous route presents itself.
If a paved path meanders through a park to and fro, why not cut straight across the grass to get from A to B more quickly?
As more people take that same passage, their footsteps start to wear a new track into the turf. These unofficial thoroughfares, known as “desire lines” or “paths of desire”, are the marks left by pedestrians rebelling against being told where to walk.
Ben Rossiter, executive officer at Victoria Walks, uses a desire path near Victoria Parade in the city.Credit: Wayne Taylor
Right across Melbourne – whether it’s at the back of the Royal College of Surgeons building in the city or near the Melbourne Museum in Carlton or in just about any piece of parkland – you’ll probably find a desire path taking you on the most direct passage to your destination.
Ben Rossiter, executive officer of Victoria Walks, sees desire paths as examples of urban planners not thinking about how people will actually move when designing a footpath.
“Sometimes they might want to do something that looks nice, and it’s beautiful,” he said. “But if it doesn’t work for people and how they actually use the space, it’s like trying to put square pegs in round holes.”
Desire paths are a source of fascination for people who like to ponder how a city should work.
On Reddit, a community devoted to desire paths takes great delight in highlighting often illogical examples of footpaths that have been subverted by walkers who refuse to be dictated to.
Sometimes, authorities try to stop desire lines from forming by using fences to block walkers from crossing where they shouldn’t.
Elsewhere, such as at the Westfield shopping centre in South Morang, north of Melbourne, they will give in and pave the path that was chosen by walkers.
A desire path in South Kensington.Credit: Sophie Aubrey
Some institutions, such as Michigan State University in the United States, have waited for pedestrians to choose the best routes before formalising those tracks with asphalt and gravel.
While the idea of people and animals slowly forming their own paths is an ancient one, the term “desire path” is often attributed to French philosopher Gaston Bachelard in his 1958 book, The Poetics of Space.
The reasons for desire paths forming were not always about finding the fastest way, said Rossiter.
Sometimes, it might be a route that is further away from traffic, or one that has better shade from trees. Planners should heed the lessons offered by desire paths, he said.
“A lot of women will not walk in some places as it feels unsafe,” said Rossiter. “They will take a shortcut to get somewhere as quick as they can.”
While some desire paths eventually get paved, not everyone thinks it’s a good idea to go that far.
A revised masterplan for Royal Park being considered by the City of Melbourne includes a proposal to pave desire lines on the native grassland circle, a large expanse of open space in the southern part of the bushland park.
The circle, which is 400 metres across and provides panoramic views of the city from a hilltop, has several desire lines running through its centre formed by walkers not wanting to go around the outside.
Landscape architect Ron Jones, one of the winners of the 1984 design competition that formed the basis of Royal Park’s original master plan, said it wasn’t anticipated that the circle would be used for commuting, such as to the nearby hospital or university.
“I think there are ways to accommodate that without necessarily bulldozing a path right across the hill,” he said.
Jones said the circle in its current form was intended to create a feeling of vast space in the middle of the city, which was an “extraordinarily wonderful thing to have”.
“To do something that just cuts that up and takes away from that experience would be a terrible loss,” he said.
Fiona Bell, president of the Protectors of Public Lands Victoria, agreed that the desire lines should be left unpaved.
As well as changing how the park was meant to be used, Bell said, there were environmental concerns from adding new paths by increasing the urban heat effect and possibly affecting wildlife.
“We think it’s a bad idea. It’s supposed to be a circle with grass reflecting what was originally there,” she said. “It wasn’t meant to be a commuter sort of thing.”
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