Mastodawn

𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇May 4, 2023

Do you know Smeed's Law?

The British engineer stated speed of urban traffic is self-regulating—attempts to increase it are self-defeating.

Avg. speed for #London traffic in 1949: 9 mph
Avg. speed of London traffic 65 years later: 8.98 mph.

Bicycles have *always* been faster.

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Raul Portales

@straphanger it's actually similar to how the original ethernet protocol (CSMA/CD) works.
If too many people try to use a shared channel, the speed will drop and people will give up, self regulating.

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Geoff 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿May 7, 2023

@Sh41 @straphanger Annoyingly, there are multiple ways to increase *average* flow rates over multiple routes, but they're thwarted if a small percentage attempt to take the fastest routes, and then everyone slows down.