Article about high speed rail comparing Spain and California

"Spain's high-speed rail system offers lessons for California," from the Sacramento Bee. The article makes at least five interesting points:

- that Spain built the system because they wanted to--it was partly built as a post-Franco unification device

- but as a country, Spain doesn't have the population density to support economically many of the lines, based on ridership

- although there has been large shifts from driving and especially flying to rail as a result of the creation of the AVE high speed rail system in Spain (which is complemented by improvements in regional railroad transportation)

- that if you want to build support for high-speed rail, you need to build it first where people will use it, and build from there, unlike the way that construction for high speed rail is supposed to start in California

- that Spain should have prioritized investment in rail, to ensure the system's long term success.

There is a video with the story and this great graphic.