Highways are far more useful than HSR. They can connect much more than hub-to-hub, they can be used 24/7, they can be used by a wide variety of vehicles supporting a wide variety of industries. HSR is just for passengers.
If we were designing the interstate system today, that's actually a fun thought experiment. What would we change? I would probably focus more on throughput -- cars can be half as wide and still seat tons of people, 5 lane highways today could easy be 8 lanes of narrower cars.
If we were designing the interstate system today, that's actually a fun thought experiment. What would we change? I would probably focus more on throughput -- cars can be half as wide and still seat tons of people, 5 lane highways today could easy be 8 lanes of narrower cars.