LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — You may have already seen them, but beginning Wednesday, volunteers started installing memorial plaques across Las Vegas to mark where pedestrians’ lives were lost.
A total of 64 plaques will be placed; then every month, the oldest month will come down and the next month in the queue will go up.
The plaques were placed on local streets where a pedestrian's life was taken between July 1, 2020 and Aug. 31, 2021.
“Someone loses their life traveling outside of the vehicle almost daily… and talk about an epidemic. There’s one that’s happening right here in our city. Last year in our city, 28 percent of our overall fatalities were people on foot,” said Erin Breen, director of the Road Equity Alliance Project.
“The idea behind Sacred Shoes is to educate all road users, no matter how they travel, about places where someone lost their life — "sacred ground," we call it — and that if you are not paying full attention, your life or the life of someone crossing in front of you can easily be lost,” Breen said.
The Sacred Shoes project has been planned by members of the Southern Nevada Pedestrian Education Task Force since fall of 2021.
The idea behind the campaign is to both educate road users and give families a place to memorialize their loved ones. Family members can submit photos, memories and stories to the website to be included on their loved one’s page.
There are several ways people can find out about any of the shoe locations: first by using the QR code on the plaque itself for direct access; second, by seeing the memorial number on the plaque and visiting the website or, finally, by going to the website, clicking on the location map on the cover page, finding the location of their crash and clicking on the corresponding shoe for the memorial number and basic information.
