Hundreds of white shoes fill busy Montreal intersection to mark Quebec pedestrian deaths

One by one, each fatal accident was commemorated, with the name and age of the pedestrian and the location of where they were killed in Quebec over the last decade read out. 

For each victim, volunteers placed a pair of white shoes in the middle of René-Lévesque Boulevard West, in front of the Montreal offices of Quebec Transport Minister Geneviève Guilbault, near Beaver Hall Hill. 

By the end of Tuesday morning's sombre event, the intersection was filled with 645 pairs of shoes — a pair of shoes for each pedestrian killed on Quebec roads since 2013. 

One pair was placed for Catherine Ricard's 13-year-old son, Jules. He was killed four years ago to the day, struck by a school bus while crossing the street outside his school in the Laurentians. 

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"It's easy for me to remember that day, to remember him in the morning. I have this movie in my head … the last time I told him 'have a good day' and now it's just finished," Ricard said, describing her son as a nice kid and "very easy to love." 

"I hope people are going to realize when they see [the shoes] that we have a problem." 

Scroll | Montreal ghost bikes through the years: 

In the last 10 years, at least 645 pedestrians and 115 cyclists have been killed on Quebec roads, according to Vélo fantôme Montréal (Ghost Bike Montreal). 

Tuesday marks the 10-year anniversary of the advocacy group known for installing white bikes to commemorate cyclists killed in road collisions in the greater Montreal area. 

But from now on, the group announced Tuesday, it will be known as Souliers et vélos fantômes Québec (Ghost Shoes and Bikes Quebec), expanding the reach of its advocacy to include memorials for both cyclists and pedestrians. It's also branching out across the entire province. 

Group spokesperson Séverine Le Page says the expansion is a response to demand from the population. 

"We get asked to install memorials for pedestrians every time that we install a ghost bike, so that's the importance of doing this," she said. "There are still countless people that get injured or die [on] foot in Quebec."

Le Page says Souliers et vélos fantômes Québec is asking all levels of government to do more to reverse the trend. 

"We have to regulate the number of cars we have in our cities, we have to regulate the size of cars in our cities, the speed, we have to change people's behaviour. It's a mind set," she said. 

'A stupid accident' 

An emotional Sylvie Bélanger came out Tuesday morning to honour her 60-year-old sister, who was killed nine years ago in a cycling accident in Mirabel, north of Montreal. 

"I think what happened to my sister is a stupid accident of someone who was distracted," she said, wiping away tears. 

"I can't believe it … It's almost been 10 years. I'm so sad." 

The group's first ghost bike was installed in September 2013 to honour Suzanne Châtelain, 55, a cyclist who was killed after she swerved into the path of a bus, while trying to avoid a van door that had been suddenly opened in her path, on the corner of Parc Avenue and St-Viateur Street.

The Quebec government recently unveiled a new plan to reduce the number of road accidents and their severity.

Montreal also announced it was speeding up its own $10-million plan to improve road safety around schools —  an effort that took on renewed urgency last December when a seven-year-old girl who had recently arrived from Ukraine was killed in a hit-and-run on her way to school east of downtown Montreal.

Sandrine Cabana-Degani, executive director at Piétons Québec, a group that advocates for pedestrians, says Souliers et vélos fantômes Québec's move will help put the prevalence of pedestrian deaths into perspective.

"It will help us remember that behind the statistics of pedestrian deaths, there's human tragedies."

"I think those commemorations will help [us] to remember that each death is one too many."