Have you ever wondered..

Or have you ever noticed in subway stations how the floor is usually a smooth tile, but there seems to be a rougher tile which snakes a path around the station?
I re-noticed it today and thought of the train stations in Switzerland with something similar except that the path there has a lot more deeper grooves which run parallel to the direction of the path on it. I never know what they were for (I was pretty sure that they weren't part of the aesthetic design of the station, especially since each station had it and the Swiss are pretty good about making things functional. Anyway, one day, I finally saw what the paths were for. He was almost knocking people over, he was going so fast, but I watched as a blind man used the grooves of the path to guide his white cane along. Moving so fast he obviously trusted where the path would take him and that it wasn't a coincidence that his cane was stuck in one of the grooves. Some of the corners were pretty sharp, so other commuters had to leap out of the way so as to not get hit. Maybe he was late for his train. It was a revelation.
The blind TTC commuters in my memory have not used the path in a similar manner. Perhaps the stations are smaller and they feel comfortable enough not to need to use the pre-designated route (assuming that's what it's for).