Walkways and Desire Lines: Protecting the Plantings

By Leslie McGuire

The walkway design leading from building to building at the 6.3 acre Sassafras Housing site at Susquehanna University mirrors the major traffic patterns. There is no cutting through the green space in front of each cluster, which is used as a gathering space for students. Photo courtesy of Susquehanna University

When dealing with any public space where people congregate, walk from one area to another or ride their bikes, one thing becomes apparent very quickly?EUR??,,????'??+people don?EUR??,,????'???t always stick to the paths laid out for them.

They take short cuts through groundcover. They congregate on lawns, not around benches. This compacts the soil, breaks down the shrubs, leaves muddy paths on the lawns, etc. You can either try to force them to obey the rules or, rather than bending the rules, you can bend the paths. It is helpful to consider the work of William Whyte when any superintendent has to replace or reconfigure pavement. If you?EUR??,,????'???re going to replace it, you might as well adjust it to fit the needs of those who use it the most?EUR??,,????'??+the people who live, play and work in your facility.

William H. Whyte, a city planner, noted that people vote with their feet ?EUR??,,????'??? they use spaces that are easy to use, that are comfortable. They don?EUR??,,????'???t use the spaces that are not. Clearly, it is easier for people to walk across this median than around it. In order to effectively make this an official walkway, you would have to install steps and drainage because the grade of the slope would be a hazard during wet weather. Photo By Guy Nelson

The Social Life of Public Spaces

William H. (Holly) Whyte (1917-1999) is considered the mentor for Project for Public Spaces, because of his seminal work in the study of human behavior in urban settings. While working with the New York City Planning Commission in 1969, Whyte began to wonder how newly planned city spaces were actually working out ?EUR??,,????'??? something that no one had previously researched. This curiosity led to the Street Life Project, a pioneering study of pedestrian behavior and city dynamics.

PPS founder and president, Fred Kent, worked as one of Whyte’s research assistants on the Street Life Project, conducting observations and film analyses of corporate plazas, urban streets, parks and other open spaces in New York City. When Kent founded PPS shortly thereafter, he based the organization largely on Whyte?EUR??,,????'???s methods and findings. More than anything, Whyte believed in the perseverance and sanctity of public spaces. For him, small urban places are “priceless,” and the city street is “the river of life…where we come together?EUR??,,????'??. Whyte?EUR??,,????'???s ideas are as relevant today as they were over 20 years ago, and perhaps even more so.

If a superintendent isn?EUR??,,????'???t dealing with a well-designed pattern of walkways, such as the ones seen on the previous page, he or she will be faced with this kind of damage. It is always possible, and probably ?EUR??,,????'??the path of least resistance?EUR??,,????'?? to place stepping stones or flagstones and allow people to do what they?EUR??,,????'???re clearly going to do anyway?EUR??,,????'??+take a shortcut. Photo By Guy Nelson

Usage is Everything

Whyte is considered the mentor for Project for Public Spaces because of his seminal work in the study of human behavior in urban settings. With a group of young research assistants, and camera and notebook in hand, he conducted pioneering studies on pedestrian behavior and breakthrough research on city dynamics. All told, Whyte walked the city streets for more than 16 years. As unobtrusively as possible, he watched people and used time-lapse photography to chart the meanderings of pedestrians. What has emerged through his intuitive analysis is an extremely human, often amusing view of what is staggeringly obvious about people’s behavior in public spaces, but seemingly invisible to the unaware.

He advocated for a new way of designing public spaces – one that was bottom-up, not top-down. Using his approach, design should start with a thorough understanding of the way people use spaces, and the way they would like to use spaces. Whyte noted that people vote with their feet ?EUR??,,????'??? they use spaces that are easy to use, that are comfortable. They don?EUR??,,????'???t use the spaces that are not.

The shortcuts people take soon become obvious. In some cases, an answer would be to place a few large boulders. Another would be to fence off the shortcut, then till the soil to release the compaction and plant thick, woody shrubs to discourage shortcuts. Make sure you plant enough, otherwise, people will probably keep walking through them anyway. Photo By Guy Nelson

The Power of Observation

Whyte suggested that through observation and by talking to people, we can learn a great deal about what people want in public spaces and can put this knowledge to work in creating places that shape livable communities. We should therefore enter spaces without theoretical or aesthetical biases, and ?EUR??,,????'??look hard, with a clean, clear mind, and then look again ?EUR??,,????'??? and believe what you see.?EUR??,,????'??

For more about William H. Whyte, go to PPS, Project for Public Spaces, or visit pps.org.