It occurs to me that I am almost the exact same age as the U.S. Interstate Highway System. I was born the year after Eisenhower convinced Congress that we needed high-speed car travel from coast to coast. I am a child of the Interstates. Highway construction has been the backbeat of my life. 

As a youth, I held out a cardboard sign and traveled between Maine and the Midwest in the cars and trucks of strangers. Later, I would move to California, start a family, visit friends and family Back East, and cross the country by car at least once every few years. I’ve commuted over the Interstates and hauled my worldly possessions over them. I’ve been from Tucson to Topsham to Tacoma. And, invariably, at the end of the exit ramp, there’s always the same intersection: gas station, fast food restaurant, store.

Here’s John Steinbeck, writing in 1960:

“No roadside stands selling squash juice, no antique stores, no farm products or factory outlets. When we get these thruways across the whole country, as we will and we must, it will be possible to drive from New York to California without seeing a single thing.” *

It’s come true. All the signs on the Interstate look the same. The same companies pop up all across the country at the same generic rest stops. Traffic backs up in the same cities at the same predictable places at the same predictable times. Bypasses built to alleviate traffic have now themselves become jammed.

And still, we drive on.

Is it any wonder? People of my generation and younger were conditioned to drive, and to become habitual drivers. We had a whole network of limited-access raceways built for us, at taxpayer expense. We were expected to drive, and to spend the bulk of our lives as car owners. A driver’s license was a rite of passage. In wealthier families, Mom and Dad sometimes gifted the first car, for a 16^th birthday or a high school graduation.

The result has been suburban sprawl, environmental degradation, accelerating climate change, and acceptance of a car culture that claims tens of thousands of lives a year in road deaths as a fair cost of our mobility. As the bulk of taxpayer money went to roads and automotive infrastructure, rail systems withered, leaving many Americans with little choice but to drive.

We obviously can’t un-build the Interstate Highway system. But we can build a national rail system to complement it, and to take some of the pressure off. It’s more efficient to move goods by rail than by road. If some people might prefer to travel that way too, they should have that choice.

* From Travels with Charley (in search of America)