BLS53
If the NIMBY movement had started a century earlier, I dare think what our transportation network would look like today.
What you might want to consider: it DID start earlier, and much of our transportation network was shaped by it then. Plenty of examples (usually written about 'disparagingly' in the press a generation or so later!) about towns that didn't want the dangerous, messy, dirty railroad anywhere near them, or landowners who didn't want the ROW to cross their property and could fight eminent-domain claims.
It might be argued that more stringent restrictions on some 'competitive' construction would have resulted in stronger railroads by the '40s and less need for 'sweeping Government reforms' to keep much of the Northeastern presence from following the Old and Weary. Of course, after the reforms much of that actually came to pass, albeit in a more organized fashion ... [grits teeth thinking of the CASO]