The more I learn about high-speed rail, the more muddled I get.

The concept remains big, bold and appealing -- even if, as Americans, we are late to the party.

I grasp the promise of bullet-train travel: less congested highways and airports. Less congested lungs, too, because of air pollution reductions.

I recognize the boost that such a massive project would give our San Joaquin Valley economy. And I understand the need to invest in transportation to meet future demands brought by population growth.

But when residents of Spain -- whose system is praised by President Barack Obama and others -- express buyers' remorse, my skepticism is raised.

And when it's reported by my colleague Tim Sheehan that only a handful of routes in Spain are profitable, I wonder about other things. Especially how almost- broke California -- even with an infusion of billions of federal dollars -- can afford a sprawling Anaheim-to-San Francisco system, much less keep it up and running.

The best course now is the time-out recommended by the California High-Speed Rail Peer Review Group.

Polls show that California voters overwhelmingly have lost confidence in the plan that they approved in 2008, and their concerns are justified. Anticipated costs have more than doubled to $98 billion, and the system's completion has been pushed back from 2020 to 2034.

In addition, the governing High-Speed Rail Authority has bungled the project nearly every step of the way, further eroding taxpayers' trust that their dollars will be well spent.

With the departure of the authority's chief executive, Roelof van Ark, Gov. Jerry Brown has taken control.

Brown says that he won't join "the defeatist crowd" and vows to press on with a system built in stages. He also says that his board appointees will come up with a new business plan.

I await the overhauled business plan and hope that it includes a comparison of high-speed rail's economic benefits against other potential infrastructure investments.

This is a must because the state, already buried under bond debt, must perform due diligence and be prudent before selling more bonds.

Spain built a state-of-the-art system 20 years ago when the European economy was booming and it wanted to market itself to the world while hosting the Summer Olympics and the World Expo. Spanish bullet trains are as much a matter of national pride as they are clean, efficient transportation.

With California dealing with the effects of the Great Recession and decades of fiscal mismanagement, the state can't afford to plunge blindly ahead and merely hope that everything pans out. Or spend nearly $100 billion for bragging rights.

Those saying that we should pull the plug on high-speed rail are wrong. But we need to tread carefully and patiently before hurtling along at 220 mph.

Let's take a time-out and learn a lot more -- including where to start the system -- before deciding.