ANDOVER — The town and the Sidney Mae Olson Rainbow Fund are partnering on a feasibility study for a bike park to encourage healthy lifestyles and honor the life of a 5-year-old girl who loved everything outdoors before she was killed in a tragic accident two years ago.
The feasibility study will look at locations for a potential bike park, or a pump park, in Andover and also develop conceptual designs for it.
A pump park would consist of dirt mounds and little obstacles for kids to learn how to ride a bicycle and some advanced obstacles for older children riding mountain bikes. It would be geared toward elementary and middle school-aged kids to have fun and get some exercise.
Eric Olson, who founded the Rainbow Fund with his wife Mary Beth Ellis, said the bike park would be a way to honor their daughter’s legacy while fulfilling the Rainbow Funds’ mission of advocating for everyone to have access to safe and active communities.
Their daughter Sidney Olson, 5, was killed on May 9, 2023, when she was fatally hit by a tractor trailer in a crosswalk at Elm Square on her way to art class with her family.
“We thought what’s a better way to commemorate Sid and embrace creating healthier lifestyles for kids in Andover than to build a bike park,” Olson said.
“As a ‘SHED kid,’ she lived life outside,” Olson added about Sidney, who attended SHED Children’s Campus.
SHED stands for Shawsheen Extended Day. It was founded in 1984 as a town program at Andover’s Shawsheen Elementary School, offering kindergarten and later after-school care programs. It’s now an independent, nationally recognized nonprofit offering programs for children and youth.
“The idea of having a place where kids can get together and have their hair flow in the wind would be really appealing to her.”
Olson said Andover is a large town with a network of trails and outdoor activities, but there aren’t many safe spaces for kids to learn to ride a bicycle. He added the bike park is part of a bigger goal to create activity hubs and connect different areas throughout Andover to make safer routes and experiences for pedestrians and bicyclists of all ages.
Deputy town manager Mike Lindstrom said Ellis and Olson approached the town and asked if there were any town projects that could be enhanced or an amenity the town may want to offer that it didn’t already have.
That’s when the idea of a bike park was born.
The Rainbow Fund will donate the first $10,000 toward the feasibility study and design concepts of a bike park. The town will contribute $5,000 for the study.
Olson and Ellis are expected to present the donation before the Select Board this month.
“We have long seen ourselves in the work we do as a catalyst,” Olson said. “We’re not going to do all the work, but we can be a catalyst for creating change.”
Olson said the donation will help people visualize the project and hopefully garner support from the Select Board. After the feasibility study is completed, the Rainbow Fund will begin fundraising for the bike park’s construction.
“We’re going to partner with the town on how we fund it, and are then hoping to partner with other nonprofits in the area and have that be a central focus for fundraising over the next couple years.”
It will take between eight to 10 weeks for the study to be completed. The goal is to have the study back in time for Rainbow Day in August for people who attend to conceptualize the bike park.
One of the places being looked at as a site is Rec Park at Pomps Pond, at 147 Abbot St. Lindstrom said the study will look at how the natural landscape in a location will play into the potential park.
Olson said his daughter loved Pomps Pond and it was a special spot for her especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lindstrom said it’s also important to figure out a place which would allow kids, and their parents, to bike there.
“You don’t want to have to drive a car to have to take a bike out,” Lindstrom said.
The town will engage in community discussion to inform any neighbors to a potential park. Lindstrom added with a project like this, the town will also want input from the children who will use the bike park on its features.
The design concepts will allow residents to provide feedback on those features.
“What’s cool to me may not be cool to a 12-year-old, or cool to me 30 years ago,” Lindstrom said with a laugh. “We could use the Youth Center and our recreation program to talk about design and have kids give input.”
The feasibility study will help with the decision-making process and give a cost estimate to the project. It will then help determine if fundraisers could cover all associated costs or if the town needs to appropriate or raise any money to finish paying for it.
The town and the Rainbow Fund have already worked together on other projects, like making Elm Square improvements and the complete streets projects. Lindstrom said this is another example of the collaborative effort to improve Andover.
“This is a really exciting thing that we’re hoping we can do,” Lindstrom said.