Highways: A Roman Empire solution to 21st Century problems.
Your argument is a cliché, not a possible solution.
They lacked the internal combustion engine. It’s a fairly significant upgrade to the initial idea of the highway.
Railroads for individual transport are like circuit switched networks, while cars on roads are like the Internet, with cars as the packets. There are lots of good reasons why the concept of packet switched networks won out over circuit switched networks, both in electronics and in transportation.
“Highways: A Roman Empire solution to 21st Century problems.”
Wrong. Highways and our wonderful cars and trucks are a wonderful transportation system, as are railroads, ships and airplanes.
"Solution"? To what problem? Amtrak is not viable, and never has been. That's not a "problem", that's a simple statement of economics. Those who cannot survive in the marketplace should be allowed to disappear. The only "problem" is fools who argue against simple economics.