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CELPIP Practice Reading: Reading for Viewpoints ID: #63201 Medium A Fair Price for the Downtown Core

Read the following editorial from a website.

One weekday morning in March, our reporter drove from the east side into downtown Vancouver and needed thirty-four minutes to cover three kilometres. City planners want to fix that with a charge on cars entering the core during the day. We support the idea of a charge. We do not support switching it on before the people with the least choice have a way around it.

Silas Meunier, a transport economist, argues for a weekday daytime charge whose revenue is locked to more frequent buses and protected bike lanes. “Curb space that costs nothing is a quiet gift to whoever drives at rush hour,” he told a council hearing, pointing to a trial on one corridor where mid-morning travel times fell once drivers had to pay. He would bill drivers by licence plate and offer a modest rebate to low-income households, but not a full exemption, which he says would empty the fee of its purpose. Zofia Balogun, who organizes on behalf of care workers, argues that the plan looks different from the other end of the day. Home care aides and restaurant cooks often start their shifts before dawn, she says, when night buses come rarely if at all. She would phase the fee in only after upgraded early-morning service is funded and published.

Stellan Brannigan, who chairs the downtown business association, says he accepts a charge in principle but fears that deliveries and client visits will drift out to the suburbs if the priced area is too large. He wants a lower rate during set delivery windows and clear signs at every camera so no driver is surprised by a bill. Gwen Soto, an accessibility planner, notes that people who rely on paratransit or hold disabled parking permits cannot wait weeks for paper applications to be processed. She supports Meunier’s revenue lock, provided every city system can read the same exemption list from the first day.

Taken together, these conditions suggest an order of events. We would begin with a tight zone, as Brannigan asks, and with Soto’s automatic exemptions ready at launch. Most important, we believe the charge itself should wait until Balogun’s early buses are running, not merely promised. But a fee that arrives before the early buses do would tell our city’s lowest-paid workers that the policy was built without them. Council should approve the charge now and switch it on in stages.

Using the drop-down menu (▾), choose the best option according to the information given on the website.

This editorial is mainly about 1.
.

Who most clearly suggests that the charge could push business out of the core? 2.
.

Zofia Balogun’s position would most likely be supported by 3.
.

What outcome does Gwen Soto’s condition call for? 4.
.

The editorial’s attitude toward Silas Meunier’s plan is best described as 5.
.

The following is a comment by a visitor to the website page. Complete the comment by choosing the best option to fill in each blank.

For twenty years I have driven into the core for work, so I read every line of this editorial twice and then read it again aloud to my husband. Silas Meunier’s claim that 6.
 is clever, but it will not pay for my gas. To be fair, his offer of 7.
 is written into the plan, not left for later. The business chair is asking for 8.
, which I can accept as long as it does not grow. Gwen Soto points out that 9.
, and my brother, who uses a wheelchair, could tell you stories about that. Your reporter’s trip, which 10.
, sounds a lot like my own Tuesday mornings.

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