Cottage Grove station

===Operations===

===Operations===

The Cottage Grove station was never intended to be a terminus. Although the station has two platforms, the northern platform is the only one that is used. This is because no fare controls exist on the southern platform, since the station originally only allowed inbound (Harlem/Lake-bound) boarding (a configuration still used by {{cta|King Drive}}). For this reason, the southern platform can only be used by trains that continue to the 61st or Lower 63rd Yards. The southern platform is also used by weekday rush hour trains that run empty to {{cta|Garfield|Green}} and back to Cottage Grove or to {{cta|Ashland/63rd}} (this is done to allow a quick and easy transfer to another branch at Garfield). The one-track setup works for Cottage Grove because the station only sees trains arrive/depart every 20–25 minutes. Since the East 63rd branch was torn down all the way to Cottage Grove, no turnaround tracks exist east of the station. Trains needing to switch to the northern platform must use the crossover tracks just west of the station.

The Cottage Grove station was never intended to be a terminus. Although the station has two platforms, the northern platform is the only one that is used. This is because no fare controls exist on the southern platform, since the station originally only allowed inbound (Harlem/Lake-bound) boarding (a configuration still used by {{cta|King Drive}}). For this reason, the southern platform can only be used by trains that continue to the 61st or Lower 63rd Yards. The southern platform is also used by weekday rush hour trains that run empty to {{cta|Garfield|Green}} and back to Cottage Grove or to {{cta|Ashland/63rd}} (this is done to allow a quick and easy transfer to another branch at Garfield). The one-track setup works for Cottage Grove because the station only sees trains arrive/depart every 20–25 minutes. Since the East 63rd branch was torn down all the way to Cottage Grove, no turnaround tracks exist east of the station. Trains needing to switch to the northern platform must use the crossover tracks just west of the station.

==Ridership==

{{Cite web |title=Ridership Report|url=https://www.transitchicago.com/ridership|access-date=March 20, 2026}}

{{#invoke:Chart | bar chart

| group 1= 406095:399681:382939:387505:419363:423441:574294:438921:415343:372487:356846:319533:302869:137986:132372:131256:178932:189282: 237706

| units suffix =

| group names = Annual ridership

| x legends = :2008::::2012::::2016::::2020::::2024:

| colors = #{{rcr|CTA|Green}}

}}

==Bus connections==

==Bus connections==