The recently released strategic plan, Plan Melbourne 2017-2050 forecasts a metropolitan population of 8 million. The city’s western suburbs will take a large proportion of this growth, with a further 625,000 projected residents. Despite such projections, no substantial changes to the public transport network are proposed beyond currently committed projects. Many initiatives proposed in PTV’s 2012 Rail Network Development Plan have not yet been implemented, nor are there any targets for increased mode share that might direct investment towards less congestion-prone futures. This paper reports on a design-research project run by the authors with graduate students at the University of Melbourne, which considered alternative scenarios for the future of transport in Melbourne’s west. A ‘business as usual’ approach was compared against the service levels, capacities and urban form required to support higher public transport mode shares for all journey types. The results indicate startling dis-connects between official plans and even delivering ‘business as usual’ mode shares for public transport. The studio found that alternative integrated, multi-scalar planning and design approaches, combining ‘network effect’ transit theory and assemblage thinking, present significant new city-making opportunities, including in locations not previously considered suitable for urban renewal. The findings of the studio provide fresh interpretations of transport and land use relationships, reinforcing the need for new thinking about growth areas and dispersed urban environments more broadly. Given the scale of population growth envisaged, the paper argues that such alternatives will be critical to achieve the headline objectives of Plan Melbourne.