Introductory techniques

Desire lines, sometimes known as shortcuts, cow paths, or paths of least resistance, are unofficial paths formed by pedestrians choosing the most direct or convenient route between points, often bypassing formal pathways or designated routes.

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Understanding these desire lines can inform design and landscaping decisions and lead to more user-friendly, efficient spaces. School grounds and local green spaces are useful places to observe, map and study desire lines.

An investigation exploring desire lines allows for insight into how members of the public move through an area, and whether paths and crossings have been intentionally designed for that movement or not.

The school grounds or a nearby park or busy pedestrian area in a local town would be ideal, preferably one with multiple points of interest (i.e. play parks, seating areas, parking, shops, public transport, road crossing points or workplaces) that members of the public would move between in their day to day lives.

By visiting the site, students should observe the most common pathways members of the public are taking through the space, and whether these follow existing paths or routes laid out for them by urban planners.

Technique to assess human impact and ethics

Aim: to investigate public desire lines on the local environment

Equipment that can be used

• clicker
• map of the area being used.

The first step is to map the area. Pupils work in pairs if in school, or larger groups if off site, and walk the entire area of study using a base map. They should mark any desire lines on their map using a red pen or pencil. They should use a scale to show where desire lines are wider or more eroded.

Pupils should then think about possible data collection techniques they can use at some chosen sites on their map to further study the movement of pedestrians. Discussions can be started with a simple observation of pedestrian activity and looking for features that encourage or restrict pedestrian’s movements. This could be from their mapping walk, photos or even google street view. From these class discussions, ask pupils in groups to suggest techniques that they might use to collect relevant data.

They are likely to come up with pedestrian counts, to record the number of users of the space. From their map they can identify the most useful desire lines to study, through discussions they can select a suitable length for the pedestrian count and relevant categories of ‘pedestrians’ – this may include walkers, cyclists, dog walkers and horse riders, dependent on the area. They can then count pedestrians, categorising them as to whether they use the designed path or desire line.

Pupils could use a table of their own devising to record counts but also factors affecting the decision to use a desire line if they can infer these, for example. Photos could be added as evidence if this was designed using https://survey123.arcgis.com/

Desire line mapping can be utilised to plot the movement of pedestrians and coupled with the prior pedestrian counts, these lines can be weighted digitally later in the classroom. Standing in a central, but secluded spot can be helpful, to try and avoid interrupting the natural pathways of pedestrians in the space.

They can also evaluate the technique, concluding that they need to repeat the pedestrian counts at different points of the day, where possible, or at least consider how time of day (and year) will impact the number of people using the path.

The map can be added to with a key for type of obstruction or reason for desire line as well as weighted arrows showing pedestrian counts and direction. Pupils could then try to think of ways to increase efficiency or user experience by suggesting alternative pathways or improvements in the environment.

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The Geographical Association (GA) has worked closely with the Field Studies Council (FSC) to develop these resources.