As hundreds of youngsters blew bubbles, drew on the concrete with chalk, rode bicycles, painted, and danced, Eric Olson and Mary Beth Ellis thought about how their daughter, Sidney, found joy in the ordinary.

“The last year has been a mix of joy and pain,” Eric Olson told the Herald inside the Old Andover Town Hall. “You see some of that here. We want to focus on the joy because that’s who Sid was, but certainly we also don’t want other people to have to go through the pain.”

Sidney Mae Olson died after a large truck hit and killed her in an Elm Street downtown crosswalk. The 5-year-old girl was on her way to art class with her family. (Courtesy / Olson family)

Sidney Mae Olson died at age 5 on May 9, 2023, when the driver of a tractor trailer struck and killed her at an Elm Street intersection. She and a family member had been going through a crosswalk on their way to art class, and the walk sign showed it was still safe to cross.

The traffic signals at the intersection now have an “exclusive pedestrian phase,” meaning traffic is stopped in all directions when the walk signs are on. At the time of the tragedy, vehicles were allowed to turn across a crosswalk while a walk sign was showing.

A year and a couple days after the unfathomable event, a healthy crowd of parents and children turned out to remember Sidney’s life and to raise awareness around safe streets for all users of the road.

More than 50 Andover businesses helped spearhead Sidney’s Rainbow Day with her parents, who have become staunch advocates for road safety. They’ve also created the Sidney Mae Olson Rainbow Fund which promotes road safety work and other efforts to provide access to kids to various sports and educational programs.

“Our vision is that this can be something that’s much bigger than this,” Eric Olson said. “Our vision is that we could have a race or something and bring thousands of people together. This is very much just the start line, not the finish line.”

Mary Beth Ellis added: “You think about how trees are all interconnected in the forest, and when one is sick the others give all the resources to the sick. That’s how it feels. Our community has kept us going and uplifted us whenever we’ve needed it.”

The town made a set of changes to the intersection immediately after the tragedy, including relocation of the stop line and increasing pedestrian cross time. More extensive changes are in the works after the town and state completed a road safety audit last summer, identifying 88 potential enhancements.

Town Manager Andrew Flanagan, speaking to community members, recounted how a forum drew over 600 people in the days after the incident and how he and other officials said, “Now is the time. The community is ready to start rethinking how we use our roadways, our other means of transportation.”

The Select Board last August adopted a Vision Zero resolution, focusing the town on ending crash-related fatalities and injuries on its streets, while increasing safe, healthy and equitable mobility for all.

The board also rescinded the regulatory speed limit on about a dozen streets and imposed a new speed limit of 25 mph.

At Town Meeting earlier this month, residents appropriated more than $1 million to sidewalks and other roadway safety improvements.

“Collectively, these all may be little things, but together, it’s a reflection of the community’s desire to think differently,” Flanagan said. “I never had the pleasure of meeting Sidney, but I know she’d today be awfully proud of her parents who have been unbelievable advocates.”

Eric Olson will be traveling down to Washington D.C. this week for an advocacy event with the National Safety Council in which he will be pushing for policies and measures to make roadways across the entire nation safer.

Specifically, Olson said he’s looking for the feds to direct more funds from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that went into law in 2021 towards pedestrian safety.

“You need that tops-down infrastructure focus,” he said. “So much of the infrastructure bill that got passed has gone to making highways bigger and wider which actually makes them less safe.”

Olson and his wife are also calling on business owners to review when and how deliveries happen “and update your trucks with the safety guards, cross-over mirrors, and backup cameras now required on state-owned trucks and proven to help drivers spot people like Sidney.”

“If those trucks are going to be getting off the highway and mixing in our small towns, having those safety measures is essential to keep us all safe,” Mary Beth Ellis said.

An investigation into the tragedy found the driver not at fault, Essex County District Attorney Paul Tucker announced last November. The driver did not face any criminal charges.

The driver was stopped at the intersection and did not see Sidney traveling on her scooter in the crosswalk below, the investigation found. The driver was not impaired by any substances and immediately came to a controlled stop after the collision, the DA said.

“What we’ve learned since that event is that towns like Andover weren’t designed really for livability and safety,” Eric Olson said. “They were designed for traffic.”

“It’s a long, hard journey to get to that,” he added, “but we believe that what we’re doing here today can inspire people to (think about) what that could look like.”

Sidney’s brother Ellis Olson, 3, of Andover scoots by safety officers on a scooter during Sidney’s Rainbow Day in Andover. (Libby O’Neill/Boston Herald)

Sidney’s father Eric Ellis smiles after speaking to the crowd gathered for Sidney’s Rainbow Day in Andover. (Libby O’Neill/Boston Herald)

Andover’s Rosie Crowley wears a bike helmet and rainbow face paint while attending Sidney’s Rainbow Day in Andover. (Libby O’Neill/Boston Herald)