The ‘halo’ is attached high onto a signpost and creates a beautiful rainbow reflection on the sidewalk below.
In 2019, the city of L.A. began the process of honoring lives lost in traffic crashes in a moving way. The LA Department of Transportation’s Vision Zero Initiative teamed up with the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs, as well as local artist John Morse, for the Rainbow Halo Project.
These unique public art pieces are a solemn reminder that traffic-related deaths not only affect families but entire communities as well, and will hopefully serve as a warning to drive with caution.
[Featured Image: LADOT]
Conor Lynch lost his life to a distracted driver at just 16-years-old while trying to catch up to his cross country team back in 2010. Lynch was the first person honored with a rainbow halo just before what would have been his 25th birthday.
On Sunday, June 12, a new halo was installed at the West Los Angeles intersection to memorialize 32-year-old Monique Munoz who tragically lost her life after being struck by a Lamborghini SUV driven by a teen.
Transportation department data reveals that 240 pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcyclists, and motorists were killed by traffic collisions last year in 2018. The rainbow halo project, as well as other roadside memorials and signs, are a few of the strategies city officials have proposed to reduce the city’s high number of fatal collisions.
The artist behind all this good, John Morse, told the Daily News that he designed the memorial marker to embody a poisonous flower – ‘beautiful but a grim reminder of life’s fragility.
“The idea is that you have a moving, living emblem on the street that changes with every moment of light. It will hopefully bring an elevation of consciousness, which is at the core of safe driving… The goal here is to cause people to think.”