When shift bridging/speedbriding in Minecraft, how much faster is it to bridge at 45 degrees than just bridging forward?

Well, let's look at this from a basic math problem. Steve wants to walk 8 blocks to the left and 6 blocks up, but he feels there is a more efficient way to do it, instead of walking in two straight lines, as shown below:

He then remembers something called the Pythagorean Theorem, which allows him to test the unknown path he believes could be faster, with this equation: (a * a) + (b * b) = (c * c). He then simply replaces a with 8, b with 6, and c with x. Then, after some arithmetic, he finds that the equation breaks down to 100 = (x * x). Then, after finding the square root of each, he finds that x is equal to 10. By logic, this means that by going in a single path, he can save four blocks of travelling time. It isn't necessarily a question of 45 degrees, but YouTubers use this mode of travel because it is easier to place blocks quicker at this specific angle.

As per OKProgrammer, diagonal shift-bridging results in shorter path connecting two random points, and the resulting time of crouching through shorter distance is the largest. But this style necessitates walking straight backwards.

Meanwhile, strafing while bridging - standing nearly sideways to your bridging direction - significantly increases your crawling speed - so much that going along two sides of a square is barely slower than bridging along the diagonal.

I've performed a test, timing building the bridge across the diagonal of a 3x3 chunks area:

Here are the results:

• 1:22 - regular shift-bridging
• 1:04 - strafe shift-bridging
• 0:57 - diagonal bridging

In particular, that means if your path isn't a perfect diagonal, the straight line is not the fastest path. Shift-bridge diagonally at 45 degrees angle to get in line with your destination, then strafe-bridge to your destination, and you'll get there faster than bridging at some other angle.