PATHS OF DESIRE

Our local Metro paper has almost completely disappeared, as have the crowds on public transportation, but I found a copy this week on a recent commute. There was a picture of a little kid on a trail very familiar crisscrossing the area around the hub of metro Lionel Groulx, now named after Rollande Danis-Pelletier (the first park named after I female that I recall seeing in Montreal, inaugurated in 2017). I didn't know a term in English to compare except for maybe a deer path. The caption called it "une ligne de desir". Wikipedia has an entry under the term, "desire path". I have always love-hated them. 

I have been enough places with fragile environments, respected the idea of "leave no trace" and seen enough destruction that is wholly human to be angered and disappointed by those who don't stay on the path. This is critical in forests and on trails that are increasingly travelled, but in the city it feels different, and the "desire paths" feel more inspirational for new type of design. If the paths were driven organically from the start, how would the park look then? The potential for inspiration is exciting.

Here are a few photos collated from Flickr.

If the website is accurate, it only takes 15 people to create a visible path. Follow the path if you honour the vegetation. I hope you do in the wild. In the city, it would be so interesting to follow the desire paths, and see pathways that arcade in the way that people have walked them, instead of how a planner thought they should walked. Maybe Parc Rollande Danis-Pelletier is a great place to start!