Although a fully implemented Skytran grid may serve your transportation needs, it will never serve all. For any mode of transportation to be truly successful, it needs to interface with other modes. By design Skytran dovetails well into other modes of transportation.

In considering the larger transportation infrastructure, we must meet the needs of widely varying distances and widely varying speeds. In general, there's a desire to highly correlate distances and speeds. For going short distances, incurring the extra expense of traveling fast is not worth it since you will only be traveling a short amount of time even at a low speed. For going larger distances it is worth the extra expense as the prospect of going a large distance at a slow speed probably means we'll forgo the trip altogether. If you had to walk across the country today, you probably wouldn't do it. In the 1800's many people DID walk across the country, though they likely didn't do it more than once. Now most people either fly across the country or don't do it at all.

Let's segment the various transportation tasks into speed-distance categories and see how Skytran relates to preferred modes of transportation in each category:

sub-mile 1-4 mph Walking is cheap, convenient, energy efficient, non-polluting and good exercise. Skytran supports walking by getting cars off the road making accidents with pedestrians less likely and decreasing air pollution that the walker has to breathe. With a Skytran grid of 1 mile, you wouldn't have to walk more than 1/2 a mile to a SkyTran station, then just walk on board a car.

1/4 to 4 miles 5-20 mph Bikes are relatively cheap, energy efficient and non-polluting. They are not as convenient nor as universally available as walking, however, with a bike-share program like the one in Paris, bikes can be readily available at all Sktran stops and other points throughout a city for a small subscriber fee (the Paris system costs rides $40 per year.) If you have your own bike you can park it at a Skytran stop but that leaves you without your bike at your destination. Maybe you don't need a bike at your destination because its in the city and a Skytran stop is near it. If the destination has a bike-share rack, you can grab a bike there. Another possibility is to have a foldable bike. Skytran cars are designed to accommodate a bike and front-wheel in the back seat.

Variants on bikes like electric bikes or tiny electric scooters are also possibilities for longer range than you would want to pedal. Some of these can fit into the back of a Skytran car as well, or perhaps rental of such vehicles at Skytran stops would be convenient.

2 miles to 100 miles 20 to 100 mph Efficient cars. This is the speed and distances that Skytran covers but it is not economically viable to put a Skytran grid everywhere. Exurbs and rural areas will likely not have Skytran so some mode of transportation is needed to get you to that nearest SkyTran stop. Getting between your house and that Skytran stop 30 miles away can be done in your own car. Hopefully you'll have an efficient one like the VW 1 Liter (235 MPG). IF you are going somewhere that's far from the closest Skytran stop, you will need a car on the other end. Zip-car like rentals can fill the void as can taxis. While you're riding Skytran you could reserve a taxi or zip-car so that it will be there when you arrive, minimizing a delay in the transfer.

100 to 3000 miles New York to Los Angeles is 2.5K miles. Traveling at Skytran's top speed of 150MPH would take 16.6 hours. That's not inconceivable but not as convenient as today's airplanes. Using Airplanes with Skytran is easy. Skytran can go directly to the airport gate since it is small, quiet and non-polluting. Total time for an airplane trip will be less with SkyTran since getting to and from the airport will be so much easier. But with a Skytran-like car traveling in an evacuated tube we can drastically reduce aerodynamic drag making much faster travel energy efficient. Speeds in excess of modern airplanes (about 500 mph) are attainable for less energy per passenger mile. Building the evacuated tubes is more expensive per mile than a guideway in air but not prohibitively so considering the high pollution and other costs of air travel. Unlike airports, evacuated tube stations can be downtown or adjacent to SkyTran stops. We may even be able to use some cars that can go both on evacuated and in-air guideways minimizing transfer time.