The half mile circle Woods Cross
A commuter rail station, and the planning document the state made the city write about it
The Station Area Plan, and the circle that does not fit inside the city.
The Woods Cross FrontRunner station opened at 750 South 800 West on 26 April 2008 and is the only one in south Davis County. It runs Monday through Saturday with no Sunday service and hourly trains off peak. In September 2025 the city adopted a state mandated plan for the half mile around the platform, a circle that crosses into West Bountiful and Bountiful and contains a refinery, and the city's own record says plainly what that has meant for housing.
My own ground is Southern Utah, four hours south of here, so these pages are researched rather than lived. Every figure on them was read at the body that issues it: the city code and the city budget notices, the Census boundary files, the state transit, wildlife and environment agencies, the county clerk, and the federal aviation and chemical safety records. Each one carries the date it was checked. A Davis County partner agent handles the work on the ground.
The live question
Can you commute from Woods Cross by train, and how often does one come?
You can, six days a week. The Woods Cross FrontRunner station is at 750 South 800 West, it opened on 26 April 2008, and it is the only FrontRunner station in south Davis County. What matters more than the platform is the pattern, and the pattern is the fact almost nobody prints: FrontRunner runs Monday through Saturday with no Sunday service at all, roughly every thirty minutes at weekday peak, and every sixty minutes off peak and all day Saturday. Checked at the Utah Transit Authority on 15 August 2026.
That is a very different asset from a stop with all day frequency. A rail station with hourly midday trains and nothing on Sunday works beautifully for a weekday commuter whose hours line up and works poorly for spontaneous trips, weekend plans and anyone whose shift ends at the wrong time. Saying so plainly is more useful than the sentence a city guide usually runs, which is that a resident can reach downtown or the airport by rail without driving the freeway. That sentence is true on six days out of seven and only if the hour works.
The genuinely unusual thing about this station is not the trains. It is the document the state made the city write about the half mile around it, and what the city put in that document about its own land. That plan is the second half of this page and it is the most buyer relevant piece of planning the city has produced.
The station, in numbers
26 Apr 2008
the day the station opened, with an 11:30 a.m. southbound departure
1
island platform, serving two tracks
6 days
of service a week, with no Sunday trains
2 Sept 2025
the day Ordinance 632 adopted the current Station Area Plan
The platform
One island platform, two free lots and a first mile problem the city has admitted to.
The station occupies a site of about 13.5 acres with one island platform serving two tracks and two free park and ride lots. The published parking count is either about 230 or about 235 depending on which source you read, the closer of the two to an issuing body being the Utah Transit Authority route schedule, which is dated August 2023. Fares are distance based: 2.50 dollars for the first station, 60 cents for each additional station, with a maximum of 9.70 dollars for the full run between Provo and Ogden. The transit authority publishes the current pattern and fares, and both move.
Woods Cross has one small distinction in the system's history: it was the first FrontRunner station north of Salt Lake Central until North Temple opened in December 2012. It is one of four FrontRunner stations in Davis County, alongside Farmington, Layton and Clearfield, and the only one south of Farmington.
Getting to the platform without a car is where it gets interesting, and where the city has been unusually candid. The connecting service is not a bus route. It is UTA On Demand in the South Davis zone, a corner to corner microtransit service booked by app or by phone on (385) 217-8191, running weekdays from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. at a fare of 2.50 dollars with free transfers to and from fixed route bus and rail, and it launched in Davis County in August 2022. The station itself, Lakeview Hospital and the South Davis Recreation Center are named destinations inside the zone. The zone, its hours and its fare all change, so check before relying on them.
The practical city guide says local bus routes serve the area. That is worth correcting rather than repeating, because there is a real difference between a bus you can wait at a stop for and an app booked shuttle that stops running at nine in the evening and does not run at all at the weekend. Both are useful. They are not the same product.
The details
Getting there
From I-15 take exit 316 at 500 South, which is the diverging diamond interchange on the West Bountiful line, then run east and turn south on 800 West; the station and its lots are on the west side of the street. From inside the city, 800 West is the spine and the station sits at its north end, a block and a half up from Hogan Park and about eight tenths of a mile from City Hall.
Before you go
- Test the timetable, not the distance. An eight tenths of a mile drive to a platform means nothing if the train you need runs hourly.
- There is no Sunday service. If your week includes Sunday travel, the station is not part of that plan.
- UTA On Demand is the connecting service and it is weekdays only until 9 p.m. Confirm the zone boundary for a specific address before relying on it.
- The parking count is published two ways, about 230 and about 235. Neither is worth quoting to the space.
The plan
The state drew a half mile circle, and the city had to write down what is inside it.
House Bill 462, passed by the Utah Legislature in 2022 and codified at Utah Code 10-9a-403.1, requires cities to adopt a plan for the area within a half mile radius of a fixed guideway transit station platform, addressing the availability and affordability of housing including moderate income housing, sustainable environmental conditions, access to opportunity, and transportation choice and connection. The plan has to be certified by the Wasatch Front Regional Council in consultation with the transit authority rather than merely adopted by the city, which is a meaningfully higher bar than an ordinary general plan amendment.
Woods Cross went through it. The Wasatch Front Regional Council issued a pool request for proposals on 1 April 2024 with a deadline of 22 April, a total budget of 100,000 dollars and an anticipated project length of six months and no longer than nine, under project manager Byron Head. Arcadis was selected. Over the following year the consultant met with the city, the regional council and the transit authority, contacted property owners inside the plan area, ran an open house and an online survey, and the Planning Commission held a public hearing and forwarded a recommendation. Ordinance 632, adopting the amended Station Area Plan as an element of the General Plan, passed the City Council on 2 September 2025 on a motion by Council Member Checketts, seconded by Council Member Larrabee, with all voting in favor.
Worth noting for anyone judging municipal timelines: the scope anticipated a plan completed in 2024, and adoption came in September 2025. That is a slip of roughly a year on a nine month project, which is ordinary in planning work and is exactly the discount to apply to the 2028 move in date now attached to the city hall project.
The steering committee was the consultant, Woods Cross planning staff, a Planning Commission member, the regional council's project manager, the transit authority and the state transportation department. The plan guides future development along 500 West, 1100 West, 800 West and 1500 South, plus the undeveloped ground along 500 West that the city deliberately folded in because the rest of the half mile circle was already built out.
What the city wrote about its own land, and it is remarkable
The scoping document states that there is a large refinery very nearby within West Bountiful on the city boundary with Woods Cross, that the presence of the refinery in the station area is of concern to Woods Cross City due to the potential hazard it may pose to other land use within the station area and a 2009 accident at another refinery that impacted the community, and that a previous Woods Cross station area plan concluded that there was very limited potential for future residential development due to the presence of the refinery and that accident. It adds that the city understands the presence of a refinery may impede development of any kind in the station area. That is the city's own planning record, quoted from the request for proposals retrieved on 15 August 2026, and it is the honest answer to the question of why there is not more housing beside the train. It is a statement about land use in a planning area. It is not a statement about safety at any particular address and it says nothing whatever about anyone who lives there.
The half mile circle
What the state asked for and what is actually standing inside the radius.
The reason this plan reads differently from every other station area plan on the Wasatch Front is the gap between the two columns below. The statute asks for one set of things. The ground inside the circle offers another, and part of it is not even in the same city.
| What the statute asks for | What is inside the circle | What the plan had to do about it | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Housing | Increased availability and affordability of housing, including moderate income housing | Built out single family neighborhoods on the east side, and a previous plan's conclusion that residential potential was very limited | Analyze refinery hazard and the possibility of relocating required moderate income housing while providing a transit connection to the station |
| The neighbors | A plan for the half mile radius around the platform | Parts of West Bountiful and Bountiful, because the circle crosses two municipal lines | Consider West Bountiful's own station area analysis, which was under way at the same time, as part of the Woods Cross process |
| Industry | Sustainable environmental conditions | Industrial subdivisions in both cities, and a large refinery on the boundary in West Bountiful | Assess hazards to the station area and the effect on future land use, as an explicit task in the scope |
| Access | Increased transportation choices and connections | A station the city itself described as difficult to reach without a vehicle, and major electrical transmission lines that prevent some kinds of development | Focus on connectivity west of the platform and the rail corridor, and identify improved connections to the undeveloped northwest part of the city |
| Commerce | Access to opportunity | Built out commercial ground on the east side of the freeway | Guide development along 500 West, 1100 West, 800 West and 1500 South, including the undeveloped ground the city folded into the study |
Statutory objectives and project scope from the Wasatch Front Regional Council's Woods Cross FrontRunner pool request for proposals, checked 15 August 2026; adoption details from Woods Cross City Council minutes of 2 September 2025. The land use descriptions are the planning record's own.
The adopted plan's actual numbers are not published anywhere publicly reachable, and no station area project has been confirmed approved or built. What is solid is the process and the findings: the ordinance number, the adoption date, the statutory driver, the consultant, the budget, the steering committee and the city's own written concerns about the refinery. What is not established is the preferred scenario's numbers, meaning units by housing type, commercial square footage and parking stalls, the named catalytic project, and whether any rezone or development inside the station area has been approved or built since adoption. The document carrying that detail is hosted on a mapping platform that requires a login. Nor was it verified that a transit oriented development zoning district exists in the Woods Cross code, so nothing here claims one. Woods Cross Community Development on 801-292-4421 is the place to settle all of it.
Living with it
A double tracking project is named for this station, and it has a federal phase rather than a spade in the ground.
One of the eleven double track segments in the FrontRunner 2X program is named North of Woods Cross, running from this station north into West Bountiful, and the mileage in circulation for it is 2.1 miles. That figure is secondary rather than issuing body, because the public display board set published under that segment name contains only project wide material, with no Woods Cross specific mileage, limits, property impacts or construction dates in it. Confirm the segment limits at the project's own site before relying on them.
The program itself is real and moving. It advanced to the Federal Transit Administration's Engineering phase of the Capital Investment Grants program on 7 August 2026, which is the last step before a full funding grant agreement, on a scope of 26.1 miles of new double track across eleven locations, one new station at Bluffdale rather than in Davis, one track realignment, ten new trainsets and a new maintenance facility, with a federal share of about 1.28 billion dollars and construction indicated for 2027 to 2030. The outcome the program describes is fifteen minute peak and thirty minute all day service, which would change the calculation on this station completely.
Treat that the way this companion treats every announced thing: as a plan carrying a date rather than as a delivery. Woods Cross is one of only two Davis County cities whose station is a named endpoint of a FrontRunner 2X segment, which is a genuine city specific fact, and the honest version of it is that a federal grant phase in August 2026 is a long way from a train running every fifteen minutes.
The environmental review for the segment covers land use and community, parks and cultural resources, hazardous materials, noise and vibration, air quality, water and natural resources, traffic and parking, and safety and security. If you are buying near the alignment, those are the categories to read when the segment specific material is published, and the project site is where it will appear. For everything about the corridor west of the tracks, the county trail page has the paved route and its trailheads.
Inside the circle
Silver Eagle and the name
The two plants, which city each is in, and the record the planning document is referring to.
Read the guideMoving here
Woods Cross or Bountiful
The commute arithmetic, the freeway exits, and what a city line changes on a tax notice.
The mover pageThe other document
The RAP tax
The dedicated parks tax, its 2025 renewal by 1,322 to 435, and where the money is allowed to go.
Read the guideThe other end of the line
Downtown Salt Lake
What the train actually reaches, written once for Salt Lake County rather than described again here.
Read the guideOne block south
Hogan Park
The 1849 burial ground and the 1850s cabin on the same street as the platform.
Read the guideThe wider county
Davis County on The Local
Fifteen towns, seven shared subjects, and the index that keeps them from repeating.
The region hubKeep reading
More of Woods Cross on The Local.
One block
Hogan Park
An 1849 burial ground, an 1850s cabin, two markers, and a rebuild landing on the block.
Read the guideThe field
Skypark Airport
A public use field inside the city limits, named for the neighbor, 234 flights a day.
Read the guideA penny in ten dollars
The RAP tax
A penny for every ten dollars, renewed 1,322 to 435, and half of it paid by visitors.
Read the guideTwo plants
Silver Eagle and the name
The 45,000 barrel plant is in West Bountiful. The one inside the city runs waxy crude.
Read the guideMoving here
Woods Cross or Bountiful
Two miles apart, one postal code, and a list of what the city line actually changes.
Read the guideThe companion
Woods Cross, in full
The block with the 1849 graves, the field with the airplanes, and the penny that buys parks.
Read the pageQuick answers
The station, answered.
At 750 South 800 West, Woods Cross, on the west side of the street at the north end of the 800 West civic spine. From City Hall at 1555 South 800 West it is eight tenths of a mile straight up the same road, two to three minutes to drive and about a fifteen minute walk. From the freeway it is exit 316 at 500 South, then east and south onto 800 West. It is the only FrontRunner station in south Davis County, and one of four in Davis County alongside Farmington, Layton and Clearfield.
No. FrontRunner operates Monday through Saturday only, and that is the single most under reported fact about this station. Weekday trains run roughly from 5 a.m. to midnight and Saturday roughly from 8 a.m. to 1 a.m., at about thirty minute headways during weekday peak and sixty minutes off peak and all day Saturday. A commuter rail stop with hourly midday trains and no Sunday service is a very different asset from one with all day frequency, and the timetable rather than the distance to the platform is what decides whether it works for a household.
Fares are distance based: 2.50 dollars for a single station, plus 60 cents for each additional station, with a maximum of 9.70 dollars for the longest run in the system between Provo and Ogden. Parking is free in both park and ride lots at the Woods Cross station. Fares and passes change, so confirm the current structure with the Utah Transit Authority before budgeting a commute on them.
Yes, two free park and ride lots on a site of about 13.5 acres, with one island platform serving two tracks. The published capacity is either about 230 or about 235 spaces depending on the source, the closest thing to an issuing body figure being the transit authority's own route schedule, which is dated August 2023. Neither figure is worth quoting to the space, and if capacity matters to your commute the sensible test is to arrive at the hour you would actually arrive and see what is left.
Through UTA On Demand in the South Davis zone, which is a corner to corner microtransit service rather than a fixed bus route. It is booked by app or by phone on (385) 217-8191, runs weekdays from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., costs 2.50 dollars with free transfers to and from fixed route bus and rail, and it launched in Davis County in August 2022. The station itself, Lakeview Hospital and the South Davis Recreation Center are named destinations in the zone. Zones, hours and fares change, so confirm before relying on any of it.
An element of the city's General Plan covering the half mile radius around the FrontRunner platform, adopted by Ordinance 632 on 2 September 2025. It exists because House Bill 462 of 2022, codified at Utah Code 10-9a-403.1, requires cities to plan that radius for housing availability and affordability including moderate income housing, sustainable environmental conditions, access to opportunity, and transportation choice and connection. The plan was funded through a 100,000 dollar Wasatch Front Regional Council process, written by Arcadis, and had to be certified by the regional council in consultation with the transit authority.
The city has put the answer in its own planning record. The scoping document for the station area plan states that there is a large refinery very nearby within West Bountiful on the city boundary with Woods Cross, that its presence in the station area is of concern to Woods Cross City due to the potential hazard it may pose to other land use within the station area and a 2009 accident at another refinery that impacted the community, and that a previous Woods Cross station area plan concluded that there was very limited potential for future residential development for those reasons. That is a land use finding about a planning area, quoted with its source and its date, and it is not a statement about safety at any particular address.
It is a program to add 26.1 miles of new double track at eleven locations along the FrontRunner line, along with one new station at Bluffdale, a track realignment, ten new trainsets and a new maintenance facility, with a federal share of about 1.28 billion dollars and construction indicated for 2027 to 2030. One of the eleven segments is named North of Woods Cross, running from this station north into West Bountiful. The program advanced to the Federal Transit Administration's Engineering phase on 7 August 2026. The 2.1 mile figure circulating for the segment is secondary, because the display board set published under that name carries no segment specific detail.
On 26 April 2008, with the inaugural southbound train reported as departing at 11:30 in the morning. It was the first FrontRunner station north of Salt Lake Central until North Temple station opened in December 2012. The station has kept the same basic configuration since, one island platform serving two tracks with two free park and ride lots, and the thing that has changed around it is not the platform but the planning framework, which the state rewrote with House Bill 462 in 2022.
A platform, a half mile circle and a planning record worth reading before an offer.
The Station Area Plan is the most buyer relevant document Woods Cross has produced in a decade, and almost nobody outside the council chamber has read it. It explains what can be built west of the tracks, why the housing beside the train is what it is, and which constraints are physical rather than political. Reading it alongside a specific parcel is a different exercise from reading it in general, and it is worth doing with somebody who has read a lot of them. Tell me what you are weighing and I will put you with a Davis County partner agent who works south Davis every week, and stay on the file for the financing side.
Referral disclosure. Outside Southern Utah, I connect home sellers and buyers with partner agents I trust in their area. If you choose to work with an agent I refer, that agent's brokerage pays my brokerage (Real Broker, LLC) a referral fee. The fee comes out of the agent's compensation; it is not an added cost to you. You are always free to choose any agent you wish, and using a referred agent is never required.