People are openly wondering why people in developing countries want to keep on cooking with dirty smoky stoves while there would be easy to use better cleaner alternatives. http://www.wired.com/2012/08/gates-foundation-toilets/

Reminds me of the switch from streetcars to cars - who in their right mind would want to start polluting the city? Maybe back then the air quality was atrocious anyway because of all the inner city industry and heating.

I happen to know that Linz (AT) and other European cities currently build new streetcar lines.

Sure, and so do probably the US. There is no denying however that lines were lost after the war all over the world for different reasons.

Austria currently has streetcars in Graz, Linz, Vienna, Gmunden and Innsbruck. The only lines that is growing are Linz?

On the other hand we lost Baden, Dornbirn-Lustenau, Ebelsberg-St. Florian, Klagenfurt, Salzburg, St. Pölten, Unterach–See and Ybbs. Most of them to buses and cars.

And in Edinburgh, no wait they don't, yes they do. Eh no, they don't.

(Joke explainer for the non-Scots: Edinburgh began building a street-car (tram) system some years ago, massively over budget and a huge political mess, it is now as good as shelved. There is one tram but it doesn't move, but you can look at it if you want to).

Actually, the Edinburgh trams line opened about a year ago. Hugely delayed, a shorter line than planned and massively over budget, but they're actually running trams on it now.

Where does it go? I moved from the UK so I have lost all contact with the ongoing fiascoes.

I may as well reply somewhat late to say the final route goes from the airport to York Place, which isn't even the complete phase 1. Or the complete Phase 1a. They basically seem to have reached to the point where the route linked the airport to the main train station and decided to call it a day.

Someone on Wikipedia made a map that illustrates the original plans vs. what has actually been built. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edinburgh_tramway_map...

Aha, thanks.