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Philly Bike-Share Program Hits Major Milestone

by Steve Tawa

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A million rides, and counting. Philadelphia's Bike-Share system has reached the double-comma trip milestone more quickly than many anticipated.

Once they reached 950,000 trips in late October, the Indego braintrust decided to pick a rider from the next 50,000 to celebrate reaching the million trip mark in what they called the "Philly to a Milli" campaign.

Aaron Ritz, who is with the office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems (oTIS) at City Hall, says they hope to announce a name from that raffle on Tuesday.

"We're picking one lucky rider from that time period and naming that station after them for the next six months," said Ritz.

During the Septa strike, the bike-share program saw an increase in daily trips to nearly 4000.

The system had been averaging between 2300 and 2400 trips per day.

Right now there are more than 1,000 bikes at 105 stations.

Not surprisingly, the Rittenhouse Square docking station is the busiest.

"People going shopping, going to lunch, taking a trip for leisure, and also, getting to work in the morning," Ritz said.

Ritz says the most popular trips appear to be a commuting option by grad students and workers between the Graduate Hospital area, to the University of Pennsylvania area and Children's Hospital.

"We're able to see people to and from work on a daily basis from those neighborhoods," he said.

Fairmount, Queen Village, Bella Vista, and Graduate Hospital neighborhoods have the most bike share members.

The city-owned program, which debuted in the April of 2015, reached the 100,000 rider mark only two months after launching, and 500,000 trips within a year.

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