A lot of universities with large campus grounds take the approach of observing the natural foot traffic wear patterns on grassy areas, and then build walkways where the most worn down parts are.
Its... pretty obvious.
If everyone is taking an alternate, non designed path... your design sucks, modify it to facilitate what people find more effective.
They did this in a park by my house. It used to have a long paved path that meandered through some woods. Engineers with the city noticed the shortcut that people were cutting through, and realized that most people didn't care for the long path. Apparently some anonymous person or several had been dumping gravel along the shortcut for traction and to make it less muddy. So the city paved the shortcut, and removed the long path so that nature would reclaim it.
Democracy in action.
It was kind of sad though to lose the long path because I liked walking through there, especially during the fall, but if it means having less maintenance machines going in there every week to pollute the place (lawnmowers, asphalt patching, etc) then so be it.
A lot of universities with large campus grounds take the approach of observing the natural foot traffic wear patterns on grassy areas, and then build walkways where the most worn down parts are.
Its... pretty obvious.
If everyone is taking an alternate, non designed path... your design sucks, modify it to facilitate what people find more effective.
They did this in a park by my house. It used to have a long paved path that meandered through some woods. Engineers with the city noticed the shortcut that people were cutting through, and realized that most people didn't care for the long path. Apparently some anonymous person or several had been dumping gravel along the shortcut for traction and to make it less muddy. So the city paved the shortcut, and removed the long path so that nature would reclaim it.
Democracy in action.
It was kind of sad though to lose the long path because I liked walking through there, especially during the fall, but if it means having less maintenance machines going in there every week to pollute the place (lawnmowers, asphalt patching, etc) then so be it.
iirc it's what they did in central park. Don't create paths and later pave the desire paths that show up