The answer to Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s musical question, at least from New York, is to cross the George Washington Bridge, stay straight on Interstate 80 for about 2,900 miles, and then head south on I-680 to downtown San Jose.

That answer was not nearly as simple in 1954.

There was a federal highway system, created in the 1920s, that often followed the path of settler and Native American trails. But you slowed down in every town with a post office and general store until you got where you were going.

In 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower – who, as a young soldier went on the military’s landmark cross-country drive that lasted two months – was in the middle of developing a system of highways of at least two lanes in each direction. In most instances, the roads would have limited access – entrance and exit ramps; you couldn’t just get on from your driveway.

It took almost 40 years to complete the system. But when it was done, there was a grid of fast roads waffling the nation. Some of the roads – I-10, I-80 and I-90 – completely crossed the country east to west; others – I-5, I-35 and I-95 – cross it north to south.

One of the system’s original purposes was national defense. Highways would allow for faster troop movement in the event of an emergency.

But it made America more mobile. It contributed to a boom in driving because it was a lot easier to get in a car for an intercity trip than to put a family on a train or bus.

It was not an unmitigated positive. Many of the routes uprooted established communities, often those with large Black populations, turning healthy neighborhoods into areas of blight. It contributed to a car and truck culture that swallowed gasoline and churned out emissions.

And while some of us are good at finding our way somewhere (not that I’m bragging), many of us haven’t got a clue as to where we’re going.

When I was young, I loved road maps. They were given out for free at gas stations – I still have several of them from the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s. I would study them for hours and plot the day when I would go across the country by car – something my family did after I graduated from high school in summer 1972.

But road maps weren’t the most efficient way to figure out how to get somewhere. Especially during the period when the Interstate Highway System was being built. Often the maps would show broken red lines or even broken plain lines to indicate where highways were being built or planned. 

That’s nice, but you can’t take non-existent roads to San Jose or anywhere else.

In the 1970s, the Defense Department – those guys again – came up with an idea that helped solve the getting lost problem. Using satellites, the developers were able to track vehicles in motion – in space, in the air and on the ground.

The Global Positioning System was strictly a military property until 1983, when a Korean Air Lines passenger jet was shot down by the Soviet Union for straying into its territory. After that, President Ronald Reagan allowed limited use of GPS for civilian purposes, mostly airplane navigation. In 2000, President Bill Clinton directed the use of the system for whatever civilians wanted to do with it.

What civilians wanted to do with it was not get lost in a car. 

Instead of unfolding a map and trying to spot where you were going, you could now punch the address into your phone or, later, into the information screen on your dashboard and get turn-by-direction to Grandma’s house or a restaurant in Piscataway. The GPS also told you if there was traffic ahead and if you wanted to use an alternative to avoid it.

It doesn’t always work well – who among us hasn’t found ourselves on a dead end street that the GPS thought went through to the next road? 

But if you want to know the way to San Jose, you can find out fast, gas or charge your car, and get on whatever interstate you and Dionne Warwick need to use to get there.