A method and system for shaping traffic in a multi-level queuing hierarchy are disclosed. The hierarchy includes a high priority channel and a low priority channel, wherein traffic on the low priority channel is fragmented and interleaved with traffic from the high priority channel and traffic combined from the high priority and low priority channels has a maximum shape rate. The method includes linking a high priority token bucket to a low priority token bucket, transmitting data from the high priority channel, and decrementing the low priority token bucket by an amount corresponding to the data transmitted. Data is transmitted from the low priority channel only if the low priority bucket has available tokens.