alt Hacker NewsUniversities seem like a social testing ground for the desired path problem.
Some universities get it. They'll see the paths humans make cutting through the grass and adjust their sidewalks accordingly.
Others don't and instead being a futile effort to penalize and police the grass rather than just giving into the human nature to want a straight line path.
It’s not just policing the grass. You have to be ADA compliant, you can’t have inclines too steep, you need sight lines with other traffic. There are many reasons a path is created somewhere.
Just look at the picture below and how the desire path could end up hurting the tree roots. You would also have a decreased sight line with traffic coming from the right.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire_path#/media/File:Desire...