CELPIP Reading Part 4 Practice Test: Ostley’s Streetlights After Midnight Debate

Ostley’s council must soon decide whether to extinguish most residential streetlights between 1 and 5 a.m. Councillor Brenda Yuen’s scheme would preserve illumination along main roads, at major intersections and around the hospital while darkening approximately 2,400 fixtures on quieter side streets for those four hours.

Yuen regards the change as overdue. Powering and maintaining the lights consumes about $650,000 annually, and she projects savings of $90,000, enough to fund the crossing guards parents have requested near two elementary schools for years. “Illuminating empty streets for sleeping residents is indefensible,” she says. Several smaller communities in the province have attempted similar schemes, she points out, none reporting increased crime.

Staff Sergeant Lena Okoro insists that the police service has taken no position, while counselling caution about those precedents. “Early-morning break-ins and vehicle thefts on residential streets are so infrequent that a few quiet years in small towns don’t reassure me much,” she notes. Perceptions concern her more: whatever happens to crime, a community has forfeited something once residents stop walking home because a street feels threatening. Should the plan proceed, she recommends retaining lights at crosswalks and bus stops.

Tom Barrette, a nurse whose evening shift at Ostley General concludes at 1 a.m., ordinarily walks the twenty minutes home and would no longer feel comfortable doing so. He also has elderly neighbours in mind, some of them up at night with the dog or heading to the all-night pharmacy. “A dark curb is how someone breaks a hip,” he remarks. Council should hunt for savings elsewhere first, in his opinion. As he puts it, “$90,000 can’t justify one serious injury,” and his petition is circulating accordingly.

Dr. Hélène Marchand, an ecologist with the Ostley Naturalists’ Club, welcomes the scheme for reasons unrelated to the councillor’s. Artificial light disorients migrating birds and disrupts insects, and residents have all but forfeited their view of the stars. The promised savings impress her less. “The lighting bill already fell once, when the old bulbs gave way to LEDs,” she recalls. “There’s little left to harvest.” The genuine case for darkness, she suggests, lies beyond the electricity bill, and she would like dimming studied as an alternative.

I live on one of the side streets affected, and I was ready to sign Mr. Barrette’s petition. Now I am less sure. Councillor Yuen’s observation that 6. Choose…other towns saw crime dropLEDs cost too muchresidents prefer dark streetsnobody needs the lights then strikes me as sensible at three in the morning.

7. Choose…Contrary to Sergeant Okoro, feeling safe mattersAs Sergeant Okoro argues, feeling safe mattersAs Dr. Marchand argues, feeling safe mattersAs Sergeant Okoro argues, statistics should decide. Dr. Marchand’s reasoning moves me more than the councillor’s, so for me the real prize is 8. Choose…a clearer night skyextra school crossing guardsa smaller electricity billsafer walks home.

So by all means proceed, but follow the police recommendation and keep lights at 9. Choose…the main roads and hospitalevery side-street cornercrosswalks and bus stopsapartment doors. Mr. Barrette’s petition has a point too: he 10. Choose…works at the pharmacydrives older neighbours aboutwalks his dog at nightwalks home after work, and lights on a few more routes would cost little. Either way, council should study dimming before anyone flips a switch.