Please put sidewalks where people want to walk!
The Shortest Path
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News and information about urban infill development in the Mile High City
Please put sidewalks where people want to walk!
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This is such an appropriate post because I was just pointing out to my friend yesterday how you can actually see that path on Google Earth! It's pretty bad! I seem to remember an old story (could be true, could be a legend) about how a few months after Disneyland opened in 1955, there were trampled paths like that that one all over the park. The landscape workers were preparing to replace the grass with sod when Walt Disney told them not to, and that clearly those were places where sidewalks belonged. If the story is true then they must have forgotten when they built WDW in Florida. There they little fences up around their grassy areas to keep visitors on the paths, which are usually winding and crowded (I don't remember any such fences at Disneyland).
Regardless if the story is true or not, it's a worthwhile anecdote. Rather than trying to make people "learn" to use the right paths, the landscape architects should admit they made a mistake and "learn" where the path should really go.
LOL – For months I have wanted to cross out "Use" on that sign and replace it with "Make!" Because what's worse? A beaten path through the grass or an ugly sign on each end of it?
Yes, this is sometimes an issue. As with many parks, the RiverFront Park has lots of nice curvy sidewalks. These are, okay, I suppose, for people wanting to take leisurely walks or for people riding their bikes for the purpose of, well, riding their bikes. But when people actually walk to go somewhere they tend to take straight lines. Similar issues apply to cities, where sidewalks are sometimes essentially freeways where people walks from A to B. In these cases I get kind of irritated by archtects attempts to change the natural flow of traffic … putting up clutter and stupid statues where they don't belong, etc. What would happen if, in the RiverFront Park, they had simply allowed people to make paths before they actually installed sidewalks? Would it have been sensible to then put down concrete where everybody walked? Maybe. Would this lead to lots of crossing points where bikers would collide with each other? I don't know. For me, I don't mind an occasional dirt path. I take this one (in the picture) every opportunity I get.
BWAHA! too true.
I agree completely. It's absurd that the powers-that-be built these elaborate pedestrian bridges and pedestrian path, then, boom, they put a patch of grass right in the middle of that path and demand that you walk around it.
Hahahahaha…nice. Just like a college campus where students aren't going to follow squares!
"If you build it, they will walk"
also known as "desire paths":
http://www.kottke.org/remainder/08/03/15274.html
This is not like you. You usually have such good instincts on the best use of space. To me, putting a sidewalk through there seems like a great way to create an unusable patch of grass. I have to have to run along/across a new sidewalk to catch my frisbee.
I disagree with "hubs." Putting a sidewalk there would not create an "unusable patch of grass." To the contrary, the example of catching a frisbee confirms that a sidewalk would be just fine. While running to catch the 'bee, you can easily and without interruption run across the sidewalk (no one is proposing a moat or a wall). And a sidewalk there would not interfere with anyone's playing with a dog either (which seems to be the primary use of that grass). A sidewalk there makes so much sense.
If your looking at a frisbee hurling in the air can you see people walking helplessly on a footpath?
I really understand everyones comments here, because concrete is the whole point of a park. Not to add green space to a city for people to play frisbee or run with their dogs, but to make sure there is plenty of asphalt and concrete. If people are that keen on sidewalks they probably shouldn't be in the park to begin with. The previous comments really disturb me actually, given that riverfront park is the only decent green space in the lodo/ballpark areas of the city. To put in context, you wouldn't hear new yorkers proposing a sidewalk on the lawn in central park.
^ I don't think you get it. I don't want a new sidewalk, I just want the sidewalk that is already there that makes a curved path between the Millennium Bridge and the Platte River Bridge to be more direct. It is the 16th Street axis, after all, and the whole point of the three bridges was to facilitate pedestrian connections between Highland and Downtown. So why give us a less-than-direct sidewalk path and then shame us with scolding signs when we attempt to go from Point A to Point B?
If people are that keen on sidewalks they probably shouldn't be in the park to begin with.
I use the park almost exclusively for commuting between highlands and downtown, and I use it almost daily. Should I just drive instead?
I disagree… leave the sidewalk where it is. Lazy, lazy, lazy. Why isn't the same logic applied to places where buildings cause people to have to walk around them? Say there's no alley and you're in the middle of one block and need to get to the middle of another… where's the outrage that you don't have a pedestrian tunnel to get to the other side? What if there is another camp that wants to beat a path straight through the park between the bridge and egress near Zengo? Or another group that wants to trample a path from the bridge to Ink? Then we'd have three more paths.
The designers obviously missed a foot-commute route. No fault of their own. It's a good sign that people are using that bridge to walk rather than driving. It's actually a good problem to have in this case, I think.
To terrible risk of frisbee-catchers running over helpless pedestrians already exists. As Ken points out, there is already sidewalk there (fraught with peril, apparently, from clueless frisbee-catchers). So moving the sidewalk to be more pedestrian-friendly would give the pedestrians a better reward for the great risk they take by walking near grass.
Apparently there's some confusion about the qualities of a building versus those of open space like grass. A building is a solid structure of at least one-story with walls. It's difficult to walk through walls. On the other hand, people can and do walk through open space. It's just so much easier than walking through a wall. And people in Commons Park are, in fact, walking through the open space along the most logical and direct route. The only question remaining is whether they will walk on a sidewalk, or on an ugly dirtpath with obstrusive and laughable signs on either end. To me, the former is much better.
I'm with you, Ken: they can still even keep the "elegance" of the curve, just make it a much more shallow curve that more closely adheres to the direct route that people are taking across the grass.
When I see all the curves and such, I wonder if this isn't a little bit of people fetishizing their drawings and models, and not thinking about the lack of bird's eye view and the use-value of the way space is actually utilized by people.
Gee Ken, you must have been having a bad day to pick something like this to rant about.
I was out walking today, wearing a pedometer, and went through the park. Taking the offending path requires ninety-five steps and takes a little less than a minute. Coming back along the sidewalk it is one hundred fifteen steps and takes a little over a minute. Have we really become so incredibly lazy that we're willing to desecrate a nice public park to save twenty steps and perhaps ten seconds?
I really would have thought that someone with your background and sophistication would have understood the reasoning behind the design of the park. It's a great place and should be left as is. It's those that are not willing to contribute to the common good and use the sidewalk that need to be chastised.
Bob Hayes
^ I'm not proposing that the sidewalk be reconfigured. I just wish the original design had acknowledged the obvious 16th Street axis and direct connectivity between the three bridges. The current path through the grass could be surfaced with crusher-fine or some other kind of permeable material that would permit its use as a pedestrian corridor while not impeding the use of the green space for recreation and spoiling the scene with obnoxious, scolding signs.
Cut corners now,
Cut corners the rest of your life!
"Rant"? Seriously? People, or at least one person, doesn't understand the meaning of the term. Ken's one-sentence initial post doesn't approximate a rant. Nor do his follow-up messages.
In any event, the fact that the alternative path, preferred by pedestrians, is relatively close to the inartful path chosen by designers of the park only strengthens Ken's point, in my opinion. With only a slight concession (to follow the direct and logical pedestrian path), the park could accomodate both pedestrians and users of the grass patch. Instead of conceding this obvious point (made even more obvious by the Google Earth map), defenders of the current sidewalk invoke vague and unexplained phrases like "the reasoning behind the design of the park." What exactly is that reasoning, and why must it hold despite evidence showing that the design is not working?
Commons Park was built before all 3 pedestrian bridges – Millennium, Platte and Highland – long before high traffic came through this Park. Use the sidewalks people – it is simple.
By the looks of the dirt path, I suspect it has been created more by bicyclists than pedestrians. I think more of the pedestrians do walk on the concrete path. The bicyclist should respect the lawn and use the concrete path instead of thinking they can trash a lawn that is for everyone's use. That being said, they should have created a more gentle curve towards the bridge when the built the concrete path in the first place.
I believe that the pedestrian bridges were planned at the time Commons Park was designed. Recall that the entire area is relatively new. So the designers of the park should've accommodated the expected (and desired) foot traffic with a more sensible sidewalk.
Much like 'e' above, I paced the area in question today. My result: grass path = 100 steps, sidewalk = 114 steps, with no appreciable difference in elevation. Not much of a difference in time or effort in my opinion.
Commons Park, much like New York's Central Park (and I'm speaking as a former New York resident) is an urban park. So, assuming whether for a daily commute or a leisurely stroll, I feel I'd have no problem making use of an urban amenity such as a sidewalk. And the extra calorie I burn with those additional 14 steps? Gravy.
I understand there's not a huge difference in the distance between the two options and the vast majority of the time I follow the sidewalk. It's just the principle of the thing. They definitely knew about the three bridges when the park was designed and Park Planning 101 will tell you that it is human nature for people to take the shortest path, particularly when there is such a logical and strong pedestrian connection. But, despite all of that, they still put in the curved path and then, after people use the shortest path anyway, put up obnoxious signs about it. Stupid.
Does anyone remember the dirt paths that existed from the corner of Colfax/Lincoln and 14th/Lincoln to the front steps of the State Capitol? For decades, the state refused to acknowledge those direct paths and tried to keep people from walking through there. It was only a few years ago they built those nice curved steps from each corner.
My two cents, is there would be no need for signs and no ugly dirt path if people would just use the stupid sidewalks. It is not that much further, and exercise is good for you. We are a society filled with people who, excuse the pun, love to cut corners.
For years people used to cut the corners when walking to the Capitol Building, and then someone finally built some nice, landscaped steps to accommodate the obvious pedestrian route. At the very least, just leave the trail alone, kind of like the 12th ave. axis across Chessman Park. It's really no big deal. But these stupid sign are a total joke.
Hey Gash22: with that logic we should get rid of our police department because we should all make an effor to commit less crimes.
Bottom line: we can either account for Human behavior or being ignorant toward it.
The biggest travesty in my mind is that the park closes every night at 11PM, which means that this wonderful 16th Street access from Downtown to Highlands is inaccessible precisely when people need it the most, after a night of partying in LoDo. What is better? It's much better to have an accessible, off-street way back home than to have to try and stumble home along the often busy 15th Street. A buddy of mine got ticketed just for walking the most obvious path home after a night of drinking.
Don't we want to encourage people not to drink and drive?
What's the big deal? it adds, what, 30 seconds to a walk? If Central Park would only have paths where people wanted to walk, it would not be the fantastic space that it is today. I think the failure here is that there is a curved sidewalk for the sake of geometry and nothing else. Plant some trees, make a hill to look off of, the the sidewalk will curve for a reason, the geometry in Google Earth will still work out, The frisbee players can keep playing, and people won't even realize they're walking 30 seconds longer than then would have to without a landscape element.
Walking efficiently from one place to another is NOT cutting corners. Poor planning for the flow of pedestrian traffic IS cutting corners. In this case its not the pedestrians who are being lazy.
it's so sad when human efficiency (shortest distance) is determined to be 'lazy' or otherwise…
fault the park planners – they should have know better. now that we DO know better…might as well pave that bad boy because people most likely won't change.
Those kinds of rabbit-paths are rampant on the CU campus. The landscapers respond by building flagstone walkways on the unplanned trails; it's not quite a sidewalk, but it stops people from killing the grass. It might be a good compromise here.
On the other hand, the sidewalk isn't all that far from a direct route – it probably all adds up to just a few extra feet to follow the curved path. Some sort of landscaped barrier might do better to discourage people from walking through than a sign.
Really who gives a hootinnanny about the path in the park people walk through parks all the time who really cares about this truly. the park is where it is leave it alone, the dirt path is fine and all, it happens sometimes, but really who cares, maybe the bridge is the prob, yep thats it move the damn bridge.
Ya @Matt Pizzuti
I was just going to mention the CU paths! This picture just made me laugh because I have trampled over that grass multiple times. I would say I was witness to about 7 new flagstone sidewalks during my time at CU. I thought it was great that the school appeased to its pedestrians by taking the obviously efficient cuts through the grass by putting down a makeshift sidewalk.
Perhaps they can figure out a creative way to take away the sign and acknowledge the efficiency in this path…
Has nothing to do with people being lazy, as others have said it is a matter of recognizing how people actually move and designing appropriately. It also doesn't mean other "social trails" wouldn't exist in this or other parks, but its using common sense where it's clearly warranted. This started to happen the day the fences came down on the lawn there and was entirely predictable. Yes, control and direction sometimes need to exist, lack of logic doesn't. It's easy to fall into the graphic design trap and forget about 3D and movement, but you have to step back. Lazy or not, beautiful curved line on paper or not, the straight trail is there and shows how a significant number of people WANT to move through the area. It should have been designed better, and the signs should come down.
It's also tough to walk on CSU's campus without walking past or being tempted by a dirt path.
It's interesting to note that the dirt path here isn't even a direct path between the two bridges. I think it goes beyond laziness because laziness would likely be a dirt path cutting this lima bean in half.
Very effective presentation.
I think it goes beyond laziness because laziness would likely be a dirt path cutting this lima bean in half.
There's actually a big barrier in real life that keeps you from cutting straight through the park, directing you onto the path. Once they get past the barrier, the dirt path makes a straight line to the bridge.
As a professional designer, this seems like it's clearly the fault of the designers. One of the main premises of design is to anticipate how things will actually get used, not how you want people to use them. The solution they came up with, while pretty, does a disservice to both commuters and park users alike, the two main groups who make use of the park.
How is that good design?
I don't think "lazy" is as good a word as "in a hurry" to explain why people would cut across the grass.
In any case, what is interesting about the satellite image is that pedestrians don't seem to be coming from the 16th Street end of the park, but are instead coming from the neighborhood on the right hand side of the screen. They follow the sidewalk there but stop following it when the sidewalk curves back.
I don't know if a sidewalk over the dirt trail would ruin the aesthetics of the park – it seems that it would really interrupt the intended shape. That's why I think any sidewalk built across the park would have to be thinner and/or a different color than the wider path.
People would take the most direct route if it weren't for the sandstone wall. I take this route when returning from the Highland, and hop on down. Not as popular a route, obviously.
Also, the park being closed–but only selectively–after 11pm really bothers me. When I walk there at night with my girlfriend or my dog, the cop waves at me. But if someone walks through drunk, they stop and search.
and the only real time the "lima bean" is truly seen is on the drawing sheet when it was put down on paper, from the satellite, and from the glass house. None of which are out on the ground level where reality meets design ideals. nothing to do with being lazy, or being in a hurry, just pure reality.
I LOVE THIS POST! This is a big deal for me in the planning world-and even in interpretive, sculpture park and "meditation garden" design. Always some wavy-gravy squirreling path that is counter-intuitive to humans or animals. I worked on the IIT Student Center in Chicago with Rem Koolhaus. He (rather brilliantly) took direct cues from the straight paths students had forged in the open dirt lot-which became the Student Union's physical circulation paths. WHY FIGHT IT? Well, I am certain that is why he won the commission. Pretty patterns on a plan smell of ego more than reality. They should add another paved path where people will actually walk. Thanks Ken!
ah, the tragedy of the commons 😉
45 posts on this subject! Not bad for one far less important than some of the other blog subjects that stir little discussion at all. I'd say a bigger problem is that they won't let people walk through the park after 11, forcing them to walk on 15th which is FAR more dangerous as there is little path at all!
Great dialog. Let's take this enthusiasm and get things done downtown.
As for the path.. I say keep walking there. They should build another path if it bothers parks and rec to have a dirt path. Eventually they will figure this out, and the problem will be solved.
I was just thinking: You know what would alleviate this problem? Building a wall-barrier that's 1-3 feet tall like they have down on the southern end of the grass oval By Little Raven. That's the only reason you don't see a grass path right down the middle of the circle. People merely start cutting across the grass where the sidewalk most starts to turn away from their desired path towards the bridge.
Just an idea. People get dissuaded from changing elevation, too.
I think an amphibious landing craft barrier and liberal use of razor wire will help solve this problem. Think the beaches of Normandy on D Day. And this would fit nicely with the nautical theme of the Millennium bridge.
Same type thing happens a CSU. I can tell you that being a Mechanical Engineer, you can sometimes get into quite a hurry and not use the designated path. This dirt path is a combination of "laziness" and "in a hurry." But it has to be developers fault for not knowing how people generally move walking across a field.