Good evening conference! It’s a real honour to speak to you all today after a day of warm weather in Brighton, and I’m excited to talk to you about a topic we all rely on every single day – Transport!

It’s great to see thousands of Lib Dem members and supporters here with us today, having travelled from all over the country on every imaginable mode of transportation. I’m willing to bet that those of you who took the train down today were faced with packed carriages, delayed trains, and overpriced fares. Those of you who drove here today will have experienced the poor state of our roads, the pollution from our motorways, and a road network designed for the 19th century. And those of you who cycled here today will have only come from a short distance away, yet still faced unsafe infrastructure and cities designed not for people but for machines.

All things considered, Brighton is a relatively safe city to cycle in, with relatively common cycle infrastructure and safe cycleways, but I live in London. Although we have made improvements to our cycle infrastructure in the UK, through the implementation of Dutch-style bus stops and the building of more cycleways, cycling in the UK is not seen as a viable and safe option for many commuters. If we want to tackle the climate crisis, we need to get people out of their cars and onto their bikes!

That’s why I’m proud to announce the Liberal Democrats are working on our manifesto commitment to reform cycle laws in the UK, and we’re not stopping there. In a bill that promises to be my magnum opus, we will be completely rethinking the way we design and build roads in the UK to be more in line with the Dutch standards of road building. We’re seeing more and more local authorities taking it upon themselves to make these changes themselves – I saw a great innovation for pedestrians the other day whilst walking in Bloomsbury, a pavement at a T-junction which didn’t end where the roads met, but continued at the same height across the junction. We need a national effort to make little changes like these! These small changes to the way we build roads have a big impact in creating spaces which are ‘owned’ by pedestrians and cyclists, not motorists, and where different types of traffic are safely able to travel without dangerous interactions at roundabouts and road crossings.

Now conference, I know this might not seem like the most exciting of policy announcements, but it’s a step in the right direction towards a safer and more environmentally friendly UK, and proof that a Liberal Democrat government in Westminster will build on these reforms and provide our pedestrians, cyclists, motorists, and public transport users with clean, safe, and efficient transport.

By /u/ohprkl