CELPIP Reading Part 4 Practice Test: Remote Work and Empty Downtowns

Three winters after most office workers were sent home, downtown Westbridge remains conspicuously subdued. On Mondays and Fridays the financial district is quiet enough to hear pigeons on the pavement. A recent municipal report puts office vacancy at 24 percent. Only about half of downtown employees come in more than twice weekly. Restaurants, dry cleaners and shoe-repair shops dependent on the lunchtime crowd are struggling, and buses once crammed at rush hour circulate half-empty.

Marcus Chen has operated a noodle counter on Kemper Street for eighteen years. With Monday and Friday sales down nearly 40 percent, he has dismissed two employees and shortened his hours. “If the big employers don’t bring people back,” he predicts, “places like mine won’t survive another winter.”

Councillor Ruth Abernathy has introduced a motion obliging the city’s own 3,000 office employees to work on-site at least four days a week from January. She reasons that “we can’t expect private firms to support downtown unless we lead by example.” The motion would also grant a property tax break to businesses that bring staff back for most of the week.

Dr. Samira Okafor, who teaches urban economics at Westbridge University, derides such mandates as “trying to rebuild a 1985 downtown in 2026.” The fundamental flaw, she contends, is a core designed around a single activity. A resilient downtown requires residents, not merely commuters. She would accelerate permits for converting vacant office towers into apartments and subsidize cultural programming that attracts visitors on evenings and weekends.

At Westbridge Transit, ridership hovers at 72 percent of pre-pandemic levels, leaving a $30-million shortfall in fare revenue. Instead of simply cutting service, general manager Paul Lindqvist has redeployed buses from rush-hour express routes to midday and weekend routes, where demand has actually grown. “We don’t need a full return. What we need is predictability,” he says.

Jenna Morrow, a software tester whose suburban commute takes ninety minutes each way by bus, has regained fifteen hours a week by working from home. “I enjoy seeing my team on Wednesdays,” she admits, “but make it five days and I’m job-hunting.” A local business survey suggests nearly a third of hybrid workers feel likewise.

As an accountant with a small downtown office, I find Councillor Abernathy’s plan short-sighted. Filling a few lunch counters with city clerks would leave downtown’s 6. Choose…underlying flawlunchtime tradefare shortfalloffice workforce untouched, and Dr. Okafor’s prescription shows why: we need people who 7. Choose…work on-siteput down rootscommute in againeat lunch nearby. And why should large firms be 8. Choose…penalizedconsultedrewardedaudited for summoning staff back? Ms. Morrow’s threat suggests that employers would simply 9. Choose…lose valuable stafflose fifteen hours a weekfill their empty towersgain a fuller Wednesday. The city should take a lesson from its own bus agency, which has 10. Choose…absorbed a $30-million shortfallcut service to save moneycalled for a full returnstopped waiting for the old rush hour. I have watched this street for twenty years, and no motion ever filled a sidewalk. Downtown recovers when people choose to come, not when they are ordered.