Yeah, Cities and communities would get together, decide that a road was needed and time/money/effort would be spent to build said road. The same between other cities/communities. The interstate project is the only thing that remotely makes sense for the government to be involved and mostly just from the dreaded regulatory stuff like "all bridges must be at least XXXX high or have a passaround" since they were built to a specific height so that military equipment/ICBM trucks could drive under them.