Why shouldn’t Houston have more trams and real commuter trains?

Houston has slowly invested in the light rail and its three current lines aren’t bad; the red line allegedly one of the most traveled lines of any light rail project in the nation at 50k ish riders per day. But, any average Houstonian seems to hate these things for no other reasons than: they don’t want to look at them, “we can’t afford them”, some concern over migrations of homeless populations given them, or just “I don’t want to pay for it”.

I don’t get this.

In my opinion, Houston is well behind, and we should have convenient trams all inside of 610, with commuter train lines coming into downtown on every freeway. Houston is only getting more congested as it grows and we are taping out the feasible size of every freeway. It seems like we are on track to have LA levels of congestion with no transportation alternatives, but can do something about it now and just aren’t?

I know there are the cost arguments, but our highways aren’t cheap and neither is car ownership, I’m sure the per rider/user cost isn’t that crazily different either way. You could say buses could also increase transportation throughput with out new infrastructure, but trains have better efficiency and can be done in ways without burdening existing traffic.

Still everywhere I turn Houstonians have the attitude of former rep John Culberson who defunded the rail down Richmond that would have connected the galleria and downtown. Is there something I’m missing? Are there concrete backings to these arguments, are there other arguments entirely or does the average Houstonian not fit the picture I painted?