A desire path, also known as desire line in transportation planning and many other names, is an unplanned small

trail A trail, also known as a path or track, is an unpaved lane or a small paved road (though it can also be a route along a navigable waterways) generally not intended for usage by motorized vehicles, usually passing through a natural area. Ho ...

formed by

erosion Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as Surface runoff, water flow or wind) that removes soil, Rock (geology), rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust#Crust, Earth's crust and then sediment transport, tran ...

caused by human or animal traffic. The path usually represents the shortest or the most easily navigated route between an origin and destination, and the width and severity of its surface erosion are often indicators of the traffic level it receives. An early documented example is Broadway in New York City, which follows the Wecquaesgeek trail which predates American colonization. Desire paths typically emerge as convenient shortcuts where more deliberately constructed paths take a longer or more circuitous route, have gaps, or are non-existent. Once a path has been trodden out through the natural

vegetation Vegetation is an assemblage of plants and the ground cover they provide. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular Taxon, taxa, life forms, structure, Spatial ecology, spatial extent, or any other specific Botany, botanic ...

, subsequent traffic tends to follow that visibly existing route (as it is more convenient than carving out a new path by oneself), and the repeated

trampling Trampling is the act of walking on something repeatedly by humans or animals. Trampling on open ground can destroy the above ground parts of many plants and can compact the soil, thereby creating a distinct microenvironment that specific species ...

will further erode away both the remaining

groundcover Groundcover or ground cover is any plant that grows low over an area of ground, which protects the topsoil from erosion and drought. In a terrestrial ecosystem, the ground cover forms the layer of vegetation below the shrub layer known as the ...

and the

soil quality Soil quality refers to the condition of soil based on its capacity to perform ecosystem services that meet the needs of human and non-human life.Tóth, G., Stolbovoy, V. and Montanarella, 2007. Soil Quality and Sustainability Evaluation - An integ ...

that allows easy

revegetation Revegetation is the process of replanting and rebuilding the soil of disturbed land. This may be a natural process produced by plant colonization and succession, manmade rewilding projects, accelerated process designed to repair damage to a la ...

. Eventually, a clearly visible and easily passable path emerges that humans and animals alike tend to prefer.

Parks and nature areas

Desire paths sometimes cut through sensitive habitats and

exclusion zone An exclusion zone is a geographic area in which specific activities are prohibited by an authority. The United States Department of Defense defines an exclusion zone is a territory where an authority prohibits specific activities in a specific g ...

s, threatening wildlife and park security. However, they also provide park management with an indicator of activity concentration. In

Yosemite National Park Yosemite National Park ( ) is a List of national parks of the United States, national park of the United States in California. It is bordered on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The p ...

, the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all List ...

uses these indicators to help guide its management plan. Trampling studies have consistently documented that impacts on soil and vegetation occur rapidly with initial use of desire paths. As few as 15 passages over a site can be enough to create a distinct trail, the existence of which then attracts further use. This finding contributed to the creation of the

Leave No Trace Leave No Trace, sometimes written as LNT, is a set of ethics promoting conservation of the outdoors. Originating in the mid-20th century, the concept started as a movement in the United States in response to ecological damage caused by wilderne ...

education program, which instructs travelers in nature areas to either stay on designated trails or, when off trail, distribute their travel lines so as to not inadvertently create new trails in unsustainable locations. Land managers have devised a variety of techniques to block the creation of desire paths, including fences, dense vegetation, and signage, though none are foolproof. Modern trail design attempts to avoid the need for barriers and restrictions, by aligning trail layout and user desire through physical design and persuasive outreach.

Accommodation

Landscapers sometimes accommodate desire paths by paving them, thereby integrating them into the official path network rather than blocking them. Sometimes, land planners have deliberately left land fully or partially unpathed, waiting to see what desire paths are created, and then paving those. In Finland, planners are known to visit parks immediately after the first snowfall, when the existing paths are not visible. The naturally chosen desire paths, marked by footprints, can then be used to guide the routing of new purpose-built paths. File:Olifantenpad Delft 2023.jpg, An accommodated desire path in

Delft Delft () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam, to the southeast, ...

, Netherlands, having been reinforced with paving and incorporated into a

shrubbery A shrubbery, shrub border or shrub garden is a part of a garden where shrubs, mostly flowering species, are thickly planted. The original shrubberies were mostly sections of large gardens, with one or more paths winding through it, a less-remem ...

, alt=a garden path with yellow gravel that runs diagonally to a sidewalk flanked by new shrubbery File:Desired path in a park.jpg, A desire path roped off for

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

File:Cattle desire paths.jpg, Three desire paths left by cattle leading to a water trough in

Wicklow Wicklow ( ; , meaning 'church of the toothless one'; ) is the county town of County Wicklow in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is located on the east of Ireland, south of Dublin. According to the 2022 census of Ireland, 2022 census, it had ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

Other uses of the concept

Images of desire paths have been employed as a metaphor for

anarchism Anarchism is a political philosophy and Political movement, movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or Social hierarchy, hierarchy, primarily targeting the state (polity), state and capitalism. A ...

, intuitive design, individual

creativity Creativity is the ability to form novel and valuable Idea, ideas or works using one's imagination. Products of creativity may be intangible (e.g. an idea, scientific theory, Literature, literary work, musical composition, or joke), or a physica ...

, and

the wisdom of crowds ''The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations'', published in 2004, is a book written by James Surowiecki about the aggregation of information in groups ...

. In

transportation planning Transportation planning is the process of defining future policies, goals, investments, and spatial planning designs to prepare for future needs to move people and goods to destinations. As practiced today, it is a collaborative process that i ...

and

urban planning Urban planning (also called city planning in some contexts) is the process of developing and designing land use and the built environment, including air, water, and the infrastructure passing into and out of urban areas, such as transportatio ...

, desire lines are used to plan road networks and to analyze traffic patterns for a given mode of travel. For example, the 1959 Chicago Area Transportation Study used desire paths to illustrate commuter choices regarding railroad and subway trips. In

software design Software design is the process of conceptualizing how a software system will work before it is implemented or modified. Software design also refers to the direct result of the design process the concepts of how the software will work which co ...

, the term is used to describe users' wide adoption of the same methods to overcome limitations in the software. For example,

X (Twitter) Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, imag ...

"paved" a number of desire paths by integrating them into the service, including @ replies,

hashtag A hashtag is a metadata tag operator that is prefaced by the hash symbol, ''#''. On social media, hashtags are used on microblogging and photo-sharing services–especially Twitter and Tumblr–as a form of user-generated tagging that enable ...

s, and group discussions.

Notes

References

External links