

can use the Timbers bike parking.

(Photo: Yes, anyone coming to the gamecan use the Timbers bike parking.(Photo: Providence Park

A Portland Timbers spokesman straightened out misconceptions about the soccer team’s rules for bike parking in an interview Friday.

Last week, a Timbers fan wrote us to report that he and his wife had biked to a game but been told by Providence Park staff that the big temporary bike racks were for Timbers season ticket holders only. He’d then asked several other attendees, who said they had the same impression.

That’s not the case, Timbers Vice President for Communications Chris Metz said Friday.

“It’s actually open to all fans,” Metz said. “I’m not sure what happened there. There’s about 300 spaces there.”


That’s good news, especially for Timbers fans in a month when season ticket holders have been hit by a club decision to end its policy of mailing free TriMet daypasses for use on game day.

Timbers President of Business Operations Mike Golub said Friday that the free daypasses had been part of a deal where the Timbers sent some cash to TriMet and also gave the agency a relatively small sponsorship in exchange for the daypasses. Starting with the 2016 season next spring, the Timbers will give season ticket holders the option to buy TriMet daypasses at half price. Golub said that for next season, the Timbers will be offering TriMet a much larger sponsorship worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, but no cash, in exchange for an allowance of daypasses that it will sell at half price to season ticket holders.

Golub said that half-off transit daypasses are still a good and unusual deal — unique in Major League Soccer and rare in other U.S. sports.

“In all our research, no other pro sports team anywhere was providing subsidized public transit passes to their fans,” Golub said.











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