El Farol Highway

traffic-jam-9146.jpg

I got caught Wednesday night in the national pre-Thanksgiving traffic jam. As I was approaching Baltimore, an electronic signboard announced:

Delays on I-95 and I-895

Suggest I-695

Of course I immediately thought: But everyone will read the sign and take I-695, so that road will be jammed too. Then I thought: But everyone who reads the sign will realize that everyone else will also read the sign, and so they’ll not choose 695. Then I thought….

Hmm. There’s something familiar about this problem.

I’m not telling which road I took, but I can report that it was the only congestion-free segment of my trip.

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