Alright, urban warriors and road-trippers alike, let's pull over for a moment and ponder something that's been rattling around in my brain like a loose lug nut: the peculiar practice of naming interstates and highways.
Now, I get it when we name streets and roads. They're the capillaries of our communities, the asphalt arteries that lead us home, to work, to that ridiculously good taco truck, or to the park where we scraped our knees as kids. Whether you grew up on a dusty country lane or a bustling city block, those streets carry stories. They have names, not numerical codes, because they're woven into the fabric of our lives. They're special. They hold emotional weight.
But highways? Interstates? Who, in the name of all that is walkable, lives on a highway?
The practice of giving these concrete behemoths names – the "Ronald Reagan Freeway," the "Martin Luther King Jr. Expressway," the "Some Obscure Politician Bypass" – always feels a bit forced, doesn't it? It's usually a thinly veiled attempt to inflate the ego of some political figure, perhaps a truly deserving one, but rarely someone who had anything (beyond passing the funding bill) to do with the actual construction or daily experience of that highway. Because, let's be honest, no one did. People don't grow up on highways. They're not special.
And trying to infuse some kind of emotional connection into them by slapping on a name instead of an appropriate alphanumeric code? That's just a cynical attempt to get us to "identify" with these concrete monstrosities, especially those that slice and dice our urban landscapes. It's a psychological sleight of hand, trying to distract us from identifying them for what they often are: destructive elements inside the city. They sever communities, create noise pollution, and prioritize speed over human scale. Yet, here we are, expected to feel warm and fuzzy about the "Governor So-and-So Memorial Parkway."
This curious case of mistaken identity extends, quite ironically, to the very vehicles that traverse these named non-places. Turn on the TV, open a magazine, or scroll through your feed, and you'll see cars being advertised and discussed as if they're extensions of your soul. Your car, they whisper, shows your "personality," your "individuality." You're rugged. You're sleek. You're adventurous. You're… a mass-produced product rolling off an assembly line, indistinguishable from the other 50,000 made that week, over which you had virtually no control.
Isn't it a bit ridiculous? Your personality, your individuality, isn't something that comes pre-packaged with heated seats and a panoramic sunroof. It's something that truly comes alive in the "eye of the beholder." It's forged in the nuanced dance of human interaction. Your personality isn't created in a vacuum; it appears in the minds of the people you interact with.
And here’s the kicker: you interact with far, far more people when you're walking down a bustling street, waiting for a bus, sharing a train car, or even just biking past a cafe, than you ever do cocooned in your metal bubble. Those chance encounters, the shared glances, the accidental conversations, the subtle navigation of public space – that's where your personality and individuality truly shine and are perceived.
They've confused individuality with isolation inside that car. They sell us the myth of unique identity through a product that reinforces our separation, while simultaneously trying to humanize the very infrastructure that facilitates that separation. Perhaps it's time we peel back the layers of clever marketing and political posturing, and remember that true connection, and true personality, happens on the human-scaled streets, not the named highways that whisk us past them.
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