The half mile circle Woods Cross
A commuter rail station, and the plan the state made the city write about it
The Woods Cross FrontRunner station, and the half mile plan around it
The Woods Cross FrontRunner station opened in 2008 at 750 South 800 West and is the only commuter rail stop in south Davis County. It runs Monday through Saturday, with no Sunday train and about one train an hour off peak. In 2025 the city adopted a state required plan for the half mile around the platform, a circle that reaches into West Bountiful and Bountiful and takes in a refinery, and the city's own record says plainly what that has meant for building homes beside the tracks.
By Scott Buehler, Moving Utah
Updated October 2026
The short answer
Two things sit at 750 South 800 West. The first is the Woods Cross FrontRunner station, the only commuter rail stop in south Davis County, which opened in 2008 and runs six days a week with no Sunday train. The second is newer and more useful to a buyer: a Station Area Plan the state required the city to adopt in 2025 for the half mile around the platform. That circle is not tidy. It crosses into West Bountiful and Bountiful, it contains a working refinery, and when the city sat down to plan it, the city wrote down in plain words why there is not much housing next to the train. This page takes the timetable first, because that is what most people are really asking, and the plan second, because almost nobody has read it.
The station
Can you commute by train from Woods Cross, and how often does one come?
You can, six days a week. The station sits at 750 South 800 West, at the north end of the 800 West spine, about eight tenths of a mile straight up the road from City Hall. It is the only FrontRunner stop in south Davis County, one of four in the county alongside Farmington, Layton and Clearfield, and for a while it was the first station north of Salt Lake Central, until North Temple opened in December 2012. From the freeway you reach it at exit 316 on 500 South, then east and south onto 800 West, where the platform and two free park and ride lots are on the west side of the street.
What matters more than the platform is the pattern, and the pattern is the part a city guide tends to skip. FrontRunner runs Monday through Saturday, with no Sunday service at all, roughly every thirty minutes at weekday peak and about once an hour off peak and all day Saturday. 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 well for a weekday commuter whose hours line up, and works poorly for a spontaneous trip, a weekend plan, or a shift that ends at the wrong time. The useful sentence is that one, not the softer one about reaching downtown or the airport without touching the freeway, which is true on six days out of seven and only if the hour works. Fares are distance based, a small base fare plus an increment for each further station, and both the timetable and the fares change, so confirm the current version with the Utah Transit Authority before you plan a commute around it.
Reaching the platform without a car is where the city has been unusually candid. The connecting service is not a bus route you can wait at a stop for. It is UTA On Demand in the South Davis zone, an app booked, 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., connecting for free to fixed route bus and rail. The station itself, Lakeview Hospital and the South Davis Recreation Center are named stops inside the zone. A guide that says local bus routes serve the area is worth correcting rather than repeating, because a shuttle that stops at nine in the evening and does not run at the weekend is a genuinely different thing from a scheduled bus. Both are useful; they are not the same, so confirm the zone boundary for a specific address before you count on it.
The station in brief
The plan
The state drew a half mile circle, and the city had to write down what is inside it
The plan exists because of a 2022 state law, House Bill 462, now Utah Code 10-9a-403.1, which requires a city to adopt a plan for the half mile around a transit station platform. That plan has to address the availability and affordability of housing, including moderate income housing, sustainable environmental conditions, access to opportunity, and transportation choice. It also has to be certified by the Wasatch Front Regional Council in consultation with the Utah Transit Authority, not simply adopted by the city, which is a higher bar than an ordinary General Plan amendment.
Woods Cross went through the whole process. The work was funded through a roughly 100,000 dollar regional council program, the firm Arcadis was hired to write it, and the city ran an open house and an online survey and took it through a Planning Commission hearing before the City Council adopted it. Ordinance 632, which added the Station Area Plan to the General Plan, passed on 2 September 2025. The plan guides future development along 500 West, 1100 West, 800 West and 1500 South, and the city deliberately folded in the undeveloped ground along 500 West because most of the half mile circle was already built. Because that circle crosses the city line, West Bountiful was working on its own station area analysis at the same time.
The plan in brief
What the city wrote about its own land
When it scoped the plan, the city put something on paper you rarely see a municipality write. A large refinery sits very nearby, within West Bountiful on the shared boundary, and the plan records that the refinery's presence in the station area concerns the city because of the potential hazard it may pose to other land use, citing a 2009 accident at another refinery that had impacted the community. An earlier Woods Cross station area plan had already concluded that there was very limited potential for future residential development for those reasons, and the city notes that the refinery may limit development of any kind in the station area. That is the honest answer to why there is not more housing beside the train. It is a land use finding about a planning area. It is not a statement about safety at any particular address, and it says nothing about anyone who lives there. Which plant is in which city, and what each one refines, is the subject of Silver Eagle and the name.
The double track program
A segment is named for this station, and it carries dates 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. The mileage in circulation for it, about 2.1 miles, is secondary, because the public material published under that segment name is project wide with no Woods Cross detail in it, so confirm the segment limits at the project's own site rather than on a headline.
The program itself is real. On paper it would add 26.1 miles of new double track at eleven locations, one new station at Bluffdale, a track realignment, ten new trainsets and a new maintenance facility, on a federal share of about 1.28 billion dollars. As of 2026 it is working through the Federal Transit Administration's engineering review, the step before a full funding grant agreement, and its published timeline points to construction across 2027 to 2030. The service the program describes is roughly fifteen minute trains at peak and thirty minute trains all day, which would change the calculation on this station completely. Read all of that as a plan carrying dates, not as a delivery. A federal grant phase in 2026 is a long way from a train every fifteen minutes.
Woods Cross is one of only two Davis County cities named as an endpoint of a FrontRunner 2X segment, which is a genuine city specific fact rather than a headline. If you are buying near the alignment, a segment environmental review weighs land use and community, parks, hazardous materials, noise and vibration, air quality, water, traffic and parking, and safety, and the project site is where any segment specific detail appears. For the paved corridor west of the tracks, the Legacy Parkway Trail page has the route and its trailheads.
FrontRunner 2X in brief
The plan's specific development figures are not public. What is solid is the framework: the ordinance and its date, the state law behind it, the firm that wrote it, and the city's own written concerns about the refinery. The unit counts by housing type, the commercial square footage, any named first project, and whether anything inside the station area has been rezoned or built since adoption are not something to take from a summary. For a specific parcel, Woods Cross Community Development on 801-292-4421 is the place to confirm it.
Scott Buehler
Moving Utah About Scott
Quick 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, a small base fare for a single station plus an increment for each additional station, up to a system maximum for the longest run 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 you budget a commute around it.
Yes, two free park and ride lots on a site of about 13.5 acres, with one island platform serving two tracks. Published counts put the capacity somewhere around 230 to 235 spaces, and neither figure is worth quoting to the exact stall. If parking matters to your commute, the honest test is to arrive at the hour you actually would and see what is left.
Through UTA On Demand in the South Davis zone, an app booked, corner to corner microtransit service rather than a fixed bus route. You book it by app or by phone on (385) 217-8191, it runs weekdays from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., and it connects for free to fixed route bus and rail. The station itself, Lakeview Hospital and the South Davis Recreation Center are named stops inside the zone. Zones, hours and fares change, so confirm the current service before you rely on it.
It is an element of the city's General Plan covering the half mile around the FrontRunner platform, adopted by Ordinance 632 on 2 September 2025. It exists because a 2022 state law, House Bill 462, now 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. Woods Cross funded the work through a roughly 100,000 dollar Wasatch Front Regional Council program, hired the firm Arcadis to write it, and had the plan certified by the regional council in consultation with the Utah Transit Authority rather than simply adopted by the city.
The city put the answer in its own planning record. When it scoped the station area plan, Woods Cross wrote that a large refinery sits very nearby, within West Bountiful on the shared boundary, that the refinery's presence in the station area concerns the city because of the potential hazard it may pose to other land use, and that a 2009 accident at another refinery had impacted the community. An earlier station area plan had already concluded that there was very limited potential for future residential development for those reasons. That is a land use finding about a planning area. It is not a statement about safety at any particular address, and it says nothing about anyone who lives there.
It is a program to add 26.1 miles of new double track at eleven locations along the FrontRunner line, together with one new station at Bluffdale, a track realignment, ten new trainsets and a new maintenance facility, on a federal share of about 1.28 billion dollars. One of the eleven segments is named North of Woods Cross, running from this station north into West Bountiful. As of 2026 the program is working through the Federal Transit Administration's engineering review, the step before a full funding grant agreement, and its published timeline points to construction across 2027 to 2030. The honest reading is a plan carrying dates rather than trains already running.
On 26 April 2008. It was the first FrontRunner station north of Salt Lake Central until North Temple opened in December 2012. The station has kept the same basic shape ever since, one island platform serving two tracks with two free park and ride lots. What has changed around it is not the platform but the planning rules, which the state rewrote with House Bill 462 in 2022.
A platform, a half mile circle and a plan worth reading before an offer
The Station Area Plan is the most buyer relevant document Woods Cross has produced in years, and almost nobody outside the council chamber has read it. It sets out what the city hopes to see built west of the tracks, why the housing beside the train is what it is, and which limits are physical rather than political. Reading it against a specific street is a different exercise from reading it in general, and it helps to do that with someone who works south Davis every week. Tell me what you are weighing and I will connect you with a Davis County partner agent who does, and stay on the financing side myself.
Or call Scott: (435) 357-4345or send Scott a message
Keep going
Continue your Woods Cross research
Eight more doors into Woods Cross, chosen for what this page covers.
Questions about Woods Cross?
Call Scott, send a message, or find out what your Woods Cross home is worth. No pressure, no obligation.
Referral Disclosure: For moves outside Southern Utah, I can connect you with trusted local agents. If you choose to work with one, their brokerage pays my brokerage (Real Broker, LLC) a referral fee from their commission. This costs you nothing extra, and you are never obligated to use my referral.