At the same time, the NSW Planning Minister, Rob Stokes, is under pressure to create the conditions under which developers can build the city's future generations of housing stock. With Sydney's population growing at about 80,000 a year, the city needs tens of thousands of new homes a year just to match pace with its new residents. It would need to build tens of thousands beyond that if the supply of new homes was to help make Sydney's existing housing stock more affordable.

These twin dynamics – the concentration of employment and the concentration of dwellings – have a common urban requirement. They can only continue through the provision of public transport, allowing people to get to work and to get home. Yes, most of us will continue to drive in Sydney, and often. But for bulk of people making the daily commute to urban centres such as the CBD and Parramatta, there will increasingly be no alternative but public transport, or walking or cycling. There is not enough space on the road, and there is not enough space in parking bays, for us all to drive to dense centres of employment from dense centres of housing. The city's growth will need to be serviced by improved public transport. And if the public transport is not up to the task, if it is not attractive enough to make people want to use it, the city's growth will suffer.

It is against the backdrop of these imperatives that the overhaul of the city's bus networks announced by Transport Minister Andrew Constance must be judged. The bus overhaul and the decision to replace some buses from the eastern suburbs with a light rail line are themselves responses to the spatial constriction of the city. In recent decades, the convenient fudge for governments needing to increase transport services has been to add more buses to existing roads. But in the CBD, at least, this policy has reached its limit – more buses will not fit. This is the central justification for the decision to build the light rail line down George Street, which from October will require George Street buses to be redistributed elsewhere around the city.

The plan to redistribute those buses, released last Thursday and Friday, will to varying degrees affect all bus commuters travelling into the city. It is impossible to judge the merits of the plan until it is put into practice, but at first glance it would appear a reasonable attempt to make hundreds of vehicles fit on fewer streets at minimal disruption to commuters. But the release of the plan also highlights just what a difficult job Constance faces: he needs to overhaul the bus system in a way that will inevitably inconvenience many, but at the same time foster enough confidence in the public transport system that more people want to use it.

A couple of suggestions. When the Sydney Morning Herald conducted its independent transport inquiry in 2009 and 2010 one of the principal recommendations was a new fare structure for Sydney. The Herald proposed removing the fare penalties that discourage commuters from interchanging between different forms of transport, such as from a bus to a train or a ferry to a train. It should cost the same to catch a bus from Bondi Beach to Bondi Junction and then a train to the city as it does to catch a bus from Bondi Beach to the city. And despite $1.2 billion spent on the Opal ticketing system, the government has not yet properly integrated public transport fares. Constance, to his credit, has announced a review of the city's Opal public transport fares, and this review should be expedited.

But in the interim other measures could suffice as a gesture of goodwill to public transport users. The government could offer some fare relief. A temporary reduction in public transport fares for people inconvenienced by CBD construction would represent hip-pocket help. But more important than that, it would show public transport users that the government is on their side, that it needs them to continue to use buses and trains, and that their forbearance is not being taken for granted.