A primary source of funding for the over billion dollars in stadiums and arenas comes from car rental taxes. The city needs visitors to require a rental car to get around; giving them a low cost alternative (that keeps the roads clear) denies the city of projected incomes.
Our current plan is a hoax to line certain property owners' pockets with federal funds.
A big part of that is the geography.
A city like Austin, we could run effective rail systems north and south, with buses feeding east and west (because Austin is built up north - south).
Houston on the other hand is just too damn big and spread out in all directions.
I will say this, effective rail systems could be done in many cities if politicians *weren't* designing them. When you get politicians designing them, they go all over the place to appease every single person and they try to please everybody. You can't design these systems to please every single person, you have to lay them out logically.