The park design should have accounted for the crosswalk on the top intersection from the get go or, alternatively, once the people made their desire for a path there obvious. The park isn't some sentient thing with its own opinion, it got made by people with 2 main functions: enhancing the environment and serving as a foot path. It is obviously failing at the second until the designers finally relented and put a proper path down to the crosswalk.

Note: you will always get people not using the path but when it's enough people to form a permanent trail then the park design obviously did not account for a rather popular destination and should be revised.