High speed rail is worthless if you don’t have the local rail to support it. That’s where the most traffic occurs by far, with millions of passengers per day. Compare that with the capacity of a few dozen high speed trains and they’re a mere drop in the bucket when it comes to mass transit.
Spain has the second largest high speed rail network in the world. They’re doing alright.
High speed rail is worthless if you don’t have the local rail to support it. That’s where the most traffic occurs by far, with millions of passengers per day. Compare that with the capacity of a few dozen high speed trains and they’re a mere drop in the bucket when it comes to mass transit.
Be that as it may, Spain is highly urban and are quite good at building things like Metros within their cities as well.