# Should City Centres Go Car-Free? IELTS Academic Reading - 14 questions - 20 minutes - Multiple choice, Yes / No / Not Given, Summary completion (word list) Source: Written by Testmigo. ## The passage You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on the passage below. Arguments about cars in city centres are usually staged as a contest between drivers and everybody else, which in my view is the least useful way to conduct them. Hardly anyone proposes keeping ambulances or disabled residents' adapted vehicles out of historic streets. The real question is narrower: which journeys into the centre genuinely require a private car, and what happens to the rest when driving becomes inconvenient? Six decades of European experiments suggest that the answer is more encouraging than motorists, and many shopkeepers, tend to assume. One of the best-known early tests was Strøget in Copenhagen, closed to motor traffic on 17 November 1962 as a temporary trial. Drivers sounded their horns on the opening day, the official in charge of town planning faced death threats, and merchants, especially the upmarket shops at the eastern end, expected trade to disappear. Some critics claimed that Danes lacked the temperament for public street life. The trial became permanent in 1964, and the car-free network around the 1.1-kilometre street was later extended several times. What strikes me is not that the opponents were wrong but that they were guessing: their forecasts rested on assumptions about national character, not on anything they had seen. Pontevedra, a Galician city of about 80,000 people, went much further. Within a month of Miguel Anxo Fernández Lores becoming mayor in 1999, its medieval centre was pedestrianised; street parking and surface car parks were later removed in favour of underground and peripheral ones, and the zone was extended beyond the old town. The results are remarkable. On the affected streets, 30 people died in traffic accidents between 1996 and 2006 and three in the following decade, and carbon dioxide emissions have fallen by roughly two-thirds. Yet I would hesitate to treat Pontevedra as a template. Residents still complain of queues on the edges of the zone and a shortage of parking, and what suits a small city may need substantial adaptation in a capital. Oslo shows how much harder the politics become at scale. In October 2015 a newly elected coalition announced that it would remove private cars from inside the innermost ring road, an area of about 1.7 square kilometres. The city's trade association warned that the centre would become a dead town. After almost a year of argument, the council dropped the formal ban and turned to parked cars instead, setting out to replace on-street parking inside the ring with cycle lanes, benches, bicycle racks and small public spaces. A full ban was kept in reserve in case these gentler steps failed. Critics called this a retreat; I regard it as an improvement. A ban invites a battle over a symbol, whereas removing parking quietly changes each driver's calculations while letting essential trips continue. Ghent took yet another route. Traffic counters had shown that nearly 40 per cent of motor traffic in the centre was passing through. On 3 April 2017 the centre was divided into six sections around a core closed to most vehicles, which grew by 128 per cent overnight. Drivers can still reach their destinations but cannot cross from one section to the next without returning to the inner ring road. Cycling's share of journeys has since risen to 34 per cent, from 22 per cent in 2012, and the city reports fewer accidents, less noise and cleaner air. It credits these gains to the plan together with other measures for walking and cycling, a caution I think wise: no single scheme can claim sole credit for a city's air. The commonest objection is that traffic squeezed out of one street reappears on the next. This is only partly true. In 2002 Sally Cairns, Steve Atkins and Phil Goodwin reviewed over 70 cases in eleven countries where road space had been taken from general traffic, concluding that predictions of traffic problems are often unnecessarily alarmist. People adapt in more ways than planners once assumed, changing the timing or destination of trips, sharing cars, taking the bus or abandoning some journeys. A 2023 analysis of 46 low-traffic schemes in London found large falls in traffic inside them and little change on surrounding roads. Yet this so-called evaporation is a tendency, not a law. It depends on realistic alternatives, and where those are lacking, some traffic is genuinely displaced. Shopkeepers' fears deserve a careful answer, partly because traders often misjudge who their customers are. When researchers in Berlin questioned 145 traders and more than 2,000 shoppers on two shopping streets, the traders estimated that just over a fifth of customers arrived by car; the true figure was 6.6 per cent. Drivers spent more per visit, but they came to the streets less frequently, so their estimated share of weekly spending was only 8.7 per cent. A 2021 review of 23 North American studies found that new walking and cycling facilities generally had positive or non-significant effects on nearby shops and restaurants. It also noted that businesses oriented towards cars might suffer, and it would be dishonest to pretend that every trader gains. Car-free should never mean access-free. Goods must still reach shops, and Oslo has piloted a small freight terminal from which deliveries continue by electric bicycle. Ghent lets emergency services, buses, taxis and care workers holding permits use streets closed to other vehicles. Such exceptions should be part of the original design, not added after complaints, and a scheme should be judged by those who find walking hardest, not by a fit majority who would cope with almost anything. On those conditions, I believe most historic centres would be better places with far fewer cars, and that the burden of proof now lies with those who wish to keep the traffic. ## Questions ### Questions 27-30: Multiple choice Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D. 27. What does the writer suggest in the first paragraph? - A. Drivers and other road users have equally strong claims to city streets. - B. Many people would like emergency vehicles kept out of historic centres. - C. The debate should concentrate on which trips cannot be made without a car. - D. Shopkeepers have been more hopeful than drivers about car-free schemes. 28. What is the writer's main criticism of the people who opposed the Strøget scheme? - A. Their forecasts were not based on anything they had observed. - B. They used threats of violence against the city's planners. - C. They misunderstood the needs of the shops at the eastern end. - D. They delayed the decision to make the trial permanent. 29. What reservation does the writer express about Pontevedra? - A. Its figures on road deaths may have been exaggerated. - B. Its underground car parks have drawn more traffic into the centre. - C. Its emissions have fallen less than the city expected. - D. Its approach might not transfer easily to a much larger city. 30. Why does the writer regard Oslo's change of policy as an improvement? - A. It won the full support of the city's trade association. - B. It altered drivers' choices without a fight over a symbolic measure. - C. It made a complete ban on cars more likely in future. - D. It gave the council an extra year in which to consult. ### Questions 31-35: Yes / No / Not Given Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer? Choose YES if the statement agrees with the views of the writer, NO if the statement contradicts the views of the writer, or NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this. 31. Ghent's cleaner air is the result of its circulation plan alone. 32. Most people in Ghent now approve of the circulation plan. 33. When a street is closed to cars, not all of its traffic moves onto nearby roads. 34. Traffic evaporation can be expected wherever motor vehicles are restricted. 35. Car-free schemes should be evaluated mainly by their effect on people with limited mobility. ### Questions 36-40: Summary completion (word list) Complete the summary using the list of words, A-I, below. - **A** overestimated - **B** underestimated - **C** less - **D** more - **E** revenue - **F** parking - **G** neutral - **H** dependent - **I** damaging Researchers in Berlin compared what traders believed about how customers reached two shopping streets with what the shoppers themselves reported. The traders greatly **(36)** _____ the proportion who came by car. Although drivers spent more on each visit, they came **(37)** _____ often than other shoppers, so they accounted for well under a tenth of weekly **(38)** _____. A review of North American research found that new walking and cycling facilities usually had either favourable or **(39)** _____ effects on local shops and restaurants, although firms that are **(40)** _____ on customers who drive might be worse off. [Practice online with a timer and instant marking](https://testmigo.com/ielts/reading/should-city-centres-go-car-free) - [Answers and explanations](https://testmigo.com/ielts/reading/should-city-centres-go-car-free/answers)