Trees are good. They absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen back into the atmosphere.

But trams help keep people out of cars and reduce pollution in the first instance.

Listening to people in eastern Sydney whinge about a few trees being knocked down to accommodate the light rail makes me wonder if they have their heads on straight. A transport initiative that reduces pollution and better serves the community after decades of neglect?

Memo east: you won the public transport lucky dip. Big time.

So here's the deal, eastern Sydney: if you want the same trees to stay in the same spot so you can admire them while you jam onto buses or sit your cars in traffic, keep them. Give those of us who live on the other side of the city the tram line.

Because on Victoria Road and down into Druitt Street every morning, we're stuck in a conga line of buses. It's a lot like the old George Street conga line of buses your tram helps replace.

Even at 7.15am, Victoria Road buses are full halfway through the trip. Imagine a tram line running all the way down Victoria Road from Parramatta through Ryde, across Anzac Bridge, to the city. In the afternoon it's elbows first to even get on a bus in Park and Druitt streets. Then the interminable slog across Anzac Bridge. Imagine not being penalised for being late for childcare. Imagine getting home in time for dinner.

It is always worth taking the assertions of transport authorities with a grain of salt. But even with that grain, consider what they say would happen if they did not chop down the so-called "tree of knowledge". "The only possible alternate track alignment would instead remove the traffic lane from Wansey Road east of Arthur Street and require demolition of an apartment building at the corner of Wansey Road and High Street," Transport for NSW says.

The government has also promised to plant twice as many trees as it fells. And it has said 81 of the 112 Moreton Bay figs will remain after the line is complete.

But an emotional attachment to a particular tree in a particular spot makes little sense – or surely it cannot to the thousands of UNSW students and commuters who will benefit so very much from the tram line. Then there's the boost to property values for homeowners.

We elect and pay our governments to make decisions based on the triple bottom line: the social, economic and environmental benefit of each project.

The social benefit of the tram: Getting home in time to eat dinner with your family. Tick.

The economic benefit: Getting to work faster to serve more clients to make more revenue to hire more staff and pay more tax. Tick.

The environmental benefit? Fewer cars on the road, and less pollution as a result. Tick.

Emotional decisions about trees should not overwhelm all of these other considerations.

This state voted Labor out emphatically in 2011 for doing too little to address the city's public transport deficiencies for almost two decades. We can't complain if the government we elected to get on with it has to knock down a few trees to do so.

Now if only Victoria Road could get a tram line too….

Kathryn Wicks is state editor.