Getting out Roy
One gate, one interchange, three state highways and one platform
The Roy Gate, the exit, the interchange and the train.
Roy is the only city in Weber County with a Hill Air Force Base gate named after it, and the only one west of the freeway with a commuter rail platform. The gate sits at exit 338 where 5600 South meets the interstate, and the state highway underneath that road begins in Hooper and ends at the gate itself. The interchange outside was rebuilt over three years and reopened in August 2026, on ground Roy shares with Riverdale. This is the whole of how you get out of this city.
The short answer
Roy is the only city in Weber County with a Hill Air Force Base gate named after it. The North Gate, which the Air Force also calls the Roy Gate, sits at freeway exit 338 where 5600 South meets Interstate 15, and it is the one entrance a Roy driver reaches without crossing into another city's grid. It is not a public road: passing it needs sponsorship, and the gate's hours belong to the Air Force rather than to any page here. The interchange outside it was completely rebuilt and reopened in August 2026, and it is shared ground, with Roy on the west side and Riverdale on the east. The city's other way out is the train, at 4155 S Sandridge Drive. Checked August 2026.
The live question
Is there a Hill Air Force Base gate in Roy, and what can an ordinary driver do with it?
Yes, there is a gate in Roy, and it is the only one in Weber County. The Air Force calls it the North Gate and also calls it the Roy Gate, it stands at freeway exit 338 where 5600 South meets the interstate, and Roy appears on the installation's own list of the cities it borders. What an ordinary driver can do with it is close to nothing: it is a controlled entrance to a federal installation and passing it requires sponsorship. The Hill Air Force Base guide in Davis County carries the gates as a set, their hours and everything behind them.
The one thing worth having straight is that the gate keeps weekday daytime hours and shuts in the afternoon. There is no weekend service at it. Which gate somebody uses is therefore a question of when rather than where, and anybody whose day runs past the afternoon is on a Davis County exit rather than Roy's. Two different Air Force readings of the exact opening times are in circulation, so no time is printed on this page. Check the Air Force's own gate fact sheet, or the Davis County guide, before relying on one.
What is much more useful to a Roy driver is what happens outside the gate rather than at it. Freeway exit 338 is Roy's own interchange, it was completely rebuilt between the summer of 2023 and August 2026, and it is now the way to three quite different things: the freeway in both directions, the free aerospace museum a couple of minutes further on, and 5600 South heading west through the whole southern half of the city.
The state of Utah has its own name for the same gate, which is worth one sentence because it turns up in legal documents. The highway designation statute describes the route this way: SR-97. From Route 37 east on 5500 South Street in Hooper to the Hill Air Force Base Northwest gate. So the Air Force says North Gate and Roy Gate, and the Utah Code says Northwest gate. Both bodies are naming something they own, and a driver following the signs at exit 338 will not have to choose.
5600 South
A state highway that begins in one city and ends at a military gate in another.
The road under Roy's biggest arterial has one of the most unusual descriptions in the Utah highway statute, and it explains the shape of the whole southern half of the city. Utah Code 72-4-113 runs SR-97 from Route 37 east along 5500 South Street in Hooper to the Hill Air Force Base Northwest gate. Read that twice: the route starts in the next city west, changes its street number at the Roy line, and ends at a gate rather than at another road.
The street number change is not a typo and it catches people every week. Hooper and Roy number the same east to west alignment off different origins, so what is 5500 South out in Hooper is 5600 South once you are in Roy. Two schools make the point: Roy Elementary sits at 2888 W 5600 S in Roy, and Freedom Elementary sits at 4555 W 5500 S on what is functionally the same line of road. If a satellite navigation system sends you somewhere that feels a hundred yards off, this is usually why.
For a Roy household the practical version is simple. 5600 South is the road that gets you to the freeway, to the museum, to the gate and out west toward the Hooper fields, and Roy owns the frontage on it from about 1750 West all the way out to about 4400 West. Riverdale has it east of about 1700 West, which is inside the interchange itself, and Hooper picks it up somewhere between 4300 and 4500 West.
The details
Getting there
From city hall on 1900 West, go south to 5600 South and then east to the interstate. The gate sits beyond the interchange on the installation side, and the signs for the aerospace museum peel off before it, into a lot outside the fence where no base access is required. There is no public through route past the gate, so 5600 South is effectively an arterial that ends at a controlled entrance.
Before you go
- The gate keeps weekday daytime hours and does not open at weekends. Anything past the afternoon means a Davis County exit instead.
- No gate hours are printed here. Two Air Force readings differ; check the base's own fact sheet or the Davis County guide.
- No public body publishes a name for the road through the gate, so this page names the roads that are published instead: 5600 South and 1900 West.
- The museum turning is before the gate, not past it. Base access is not involved at any point.
- 5600 South becomes 5500 South at the Hooper line, on the same alignment. Check the city as well as the number in an address.
The rebuilt interchange
Three years of construction finished in August 2026, on ground the two cities share down the middle.
The interstate interchange at 5600 South was rebuilt from the ground up and the transport department recorded it finished on the seventeenth of August 2026, three years after construction started in the summer of 2023. It is now a single point urban interchange, which in plain terms means one signal handles the movements that several ramps used to, and 5600 South itself was widened between the freeway and 3500 West with new pavement, cycle lanes and a shared use path along it. The department puts traffic in the area at about a hundred thousand vehicles a day. Its own announcement named Roy, Riverdale and Hill Air Force Base as the places the finished work connects.
That naming of two cities is geographically exact rather than diplomatic, and it is worth knowing if you are about to credit the interchange to one of them. The Roy and Riverdale line falls inside the interchange footprint, somewhere between 1800 West and 1700 West. The west side and the exit itself are Roy's; the east side is Riverdale's. Neither city owns the whole thing and any page that gives it to one of them alone is half right.
The other piece of the project is the one a household will actually use on foot. A new pedestrian bridge was built to carry the rail trail over 5600 South, so that corridor no longer has to cross the city's busiest arterial at road level. The trail itself is on Roy's own list of park entries, and nobody publishes its length, its surface or where it starts, which is a real gap in an otherwise well documented city.
One thing this page will not tell you is that the rebuild made your drive faster. The transport department published no travel time claim of any kind, and neither does this. What it published is the design change, the widening, the walking and cycling provision and the new bridge, all of which are physical facts you can see from the road.
The details
Getting there
Straight down 1900 West to 5600 South and east. Coming the other way, exit 338 puts you on the widened arterial heading west into the southern half of Roy, with cycle lanes and a shared use path from the freeway out to 3500 West. The rail trail crosses overhead on its own bridge rather than at the lights.
Before you go
- The two cities share this interchange. Roy has the west side and the exit; Riverdale has the east side.
- One signal now handles what several ramp movements used to, which changes the driving pattern rather than the timing.
- The transport department published no travel time saving, so nobody should be quoting one.
- The rail trail crosses on a new bridge above the road rather than at grade.
- About a hundred thousand vehicles a day pass through this area on the department's own count.
The train
The only platform for four cities, free to park at and closed on Sundays.
Weber County has exactly two commuter rail stations, Ogden Central and Roy, and Roy is the only one that is not the end of a line. That single fact does more work than anything else on this page.
The Roy FrontRunner station stands at 4155 S Sandridge Drive on a city block the county assessor records as Roy ground, with four more parcels around it making up the park and ride. It is the only station between Ogden Central and Clearfield, which makes it the nearest platform not only for this city but for Hooper, Clinton, West Point and Syracuse, none of which has one. That is the whole reason the lot works as hard as it does, and it needs no guess about who parks in it.
Service runs Monday to Saturday with no Sunday service at all, at half hourly intervals during weekday peaks and hourly the rest of the time and on Saturday. The transit authority explains that span by pointing at the line itself, which is mostly single track. Parking at the station is free. No number of spaces is published by the transit authority, so any stall count you see quoted for Roy comes from somewhere that is not the transit authority.
Fares are distance based rather than flat: two dollars fifty for one station and sixty cents for each additional station, with the longest run on the line, Provo to Ogden, capping at nine dollars seventy one way. A local one way ticket is two dollars fifty and is valid for two hours, and a day pass is five dollars. In a straight line Ogden Central is about seven miles north north east and Salt Lake Central about thirty miles south, though the line is not straight and the published timetable is the only place to get a real journey time.
For a household choosing between Roy and its neighbours, this is a genuine differentiator and it should be weighed as one. Being ten minutes from this platform and being twenty five minutes from any platform are two different daily lives for anybody working in Salt Lake County, and the difference is measured in hours a week rather than in minutes.
The details
Getting there
North on 1900 West from city hall to about 4100 South, then west to Sandridge Drive. The platform sits on its own block with the park and ride wrapped around it. Note the spelling: the street and the station are Sandridge, one word, while the junior high school a mile away is Sand Ridge, two words, on the city's own schools page. Searching for one will find you the other.
Before you go
- No Sunday service on this line, ever. A Sunday commute here is a car journey.
- Half hourly at weekday peaks, hourly at other times and on Saturday.
- Parking is free and the number of spaces is not published, so a peak morning is worth arriving early for.
- Four neighbouring cities with no station of their own reach this one first.
- The fare is distance based: $2.50 for one station and 60 cents for each one after.
| Way out of Roy | What it is | When it works | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Freeway exit 338 | The rebuilt interchange at 5600 South, on the southern edge of the city | Any time | The two cities share it, and about a hundred thousand vehicles a day use the area |
| The North or Roy Gate | A controlled entrance to the installation, beyond the interchange | Weekday daytime hours only | It is not a public road. Passing it requires sponsorship |
| 1900 West, SR-126 | The city's north to south spine, from at least 4400 South north toward West Haven | Any time | It is also the parade route on one Saturday a year |
| Midland Drive, SR-108 | The diagonal, running south west toward Clearfield and Syracuse | Any time | It cuts across the grid, so it is the one road you cannot navigate by address alone |
| The FrontRunner platform | Commuter rail at 4155 S Sandridge Drive, free to park at | Monday to Saturday | No Sunday service at all, and no published stall count |
Route descriptions from Utah Code 72-4-113, the state highway designation statute; the interchange from the transport department's own announcement of 17 August 2026; service span, fares and parking from the Utah Transit Authority. Read August 2026. Drive times to specific destinations are not published by any of these bodies and none is estimated here.
Living with it
Good roads, one train, one gate, and a fence line that is a boundary rather than a subject.
The transport case for a Roy address is strong and it is easy to state. A rebuilt freeway interchange on the southern edge. A commuter rail platform inside the city that four neighbouring cities have to drive to. Two state highways crossing the grid and a third cutting diagonally through it. And a flat, square street layout that makes almost every trip inside the city about six minutes long. For a household that drives to Salt Lake County or to Ogden regularly, this is one of the better addresses on the west side of the freeway.
The two limits are both about time rather than distance. The commuter line does not run on Sunday, so a seven day schedule needs a car anyway. And the city's own gate keeps weekday daytime hours, which means the gate that carries this city's name is only useful for part of a week, and the rest of the time the way in is somebody else's exit further south.
The last thing to say is what this page has deliberately not said. Everything on the far side of that gate belongs to the Hill Air Force Base guide, which carries the installation, its gates as a set, their hours, its visitor arrangements, its museum and its history. Nothing on this companion describes anybody connected to it in any way at all, and that is a rule rather than an oversight. What Roy has is a boundary, a road and an exit number, and those are enough to be getting on with.
Two Air Force readings of the Roy Gate's hours are in circulation, and the interchange outside it is not Roy's alone. No gate hours appear anywhere on this page, and that is deliberate. Two different readings of the North Gate's opening times both trace back to the Air Force, the base's own website is not readable by ordinary tools, and one of the two headlines the fact that the hours were adjusted. Anyone planning around the gate should read the Air Force's own current fact sheet or the Davis County guide that carries it, and should not rely on a time from any other source, including this one. The second half is a boundary: the rebuilt interchange at 5600 South straddles the Roy and Riverdale line, which falls between 1800 West and 1700 West inside the footprint. The exit and the west side are Roy's, the east side is Riverdale's, and the transport department named both cities for a reason.
A gate with the city's name on it that closes in the afternoon, and a train that does not run on Sunday. Roy's connections are excellent five days a week and ordinary on the other two.
Keep reading
Five more pages on Roy, and the question each one answers.
The ranked list
The top 8 things to do in Roy
Eight picks with the hours, the fees and the two ways a visit goes wrong.
Read the guideSwim and play
The Aquatic Center and the Rec Complex
An outdoor pool that runs late on Mondays and an indoor one that opens at five.
Read the guideThe festival
Roy Days and the city's four events
Sixteen days, a parade at nine, and a fireworks rule about where you cannot stand.
Read the guideThe city line
Where Roy begins and ends
A stepped city line, an unincorporated gap, and four Roy addresses in other cities.
Read the guideMoving here
Moving to Roy
Two water bills, two fire stations, eight schools, and a branch library that opens at ten.
Read the guideThe whole set
Roy, start to finish
Eight square miles, eleven parks, two pools, a two week festival and a gate at exit 338.
Open the companionQuick answers
The gate and the commute, answered.
Yes, and it is the only one in Weber County. The Air Force calls it the North Gate and also calls it the Roy Gate, and it sits at freeway exit 338 where 5600 South meets Interstate 15. Roy appears on the installation's own list of the cities it borders. It is a controlled entrance rather than a public road, so passing it requires sponsorship, and it keeps weekday daytime hours with no weekend service. Everything behind it, including the gates as a set and their opening times, belongs to this site's Hill Air Force Base guide in Davis County.
This page does not print them, and the reason matters. Two different readings of the North Gate's opening times both trace back to the Air Force, the base's own website is not readable by ordinary tools, and one of the two carries a headline saying the hours were adjusted. Publishing a time from a source that might be a previous vintage would be worse than publishing none. Read the Air Force's own current gate fact sheet, or the Davis County guide on this site that carries it. What is safe to say is that the gate runs weekday daytime hours only.
It is 5600 South, and the state highway statute gives it one of the more unusual descriptions in Utah: SR-97 runs from Route 37 east along 5500 South Street in Hooper to the Hill Air Force Base Northwest gate. So the route begins in the next city west, changes its street number at the Roy line because Hooper and Roy number the same alignment off different origins, and ends at a military gate rather than at another road. Roy's frontage on it runs from about 1750 West out to about 4400 West.
Both, and that is not a fudge. The Roy and Riverdale line falls inside the interchange footprint, somewhere between 1800 West and 1700 West, so the exit and the western side are Roy's and the eastern side is Riverdale's. The transport department named both cities, along with Hill Air Force Base, when it announced the finished work on 17 August 2026, and on the boundary evidence that naming is geographically exact rather than diplomatic. Any page that credits the whole interchange to one city alone is half right.
The transport department recorded it complete on 17 August 2026, after construction that began in the summer of 2023. The work rebuilt the interstate interchange at 5600 South as a single point urban interchange, so one signal now handles movements that several ramps used to, widened 5600 South between the freeway and 3500 West with new pavement, cycle lanes and a shared use path, and built a new pedestrian bridge to carry the rail trail over the road. The department published no travel time claim, so nobody should be quoting a saving.
Yes, at 4155 S Sandridge Drive, and it is the only FrontRunner station between Ogden Central and Clearfield. Weber County has exactly two stations and Roy is the one that is not the end of a line. That makes it the nearest platform for Hooper, Clinton, West Point and Syracuse as well as for Roy itself, none of which has a station. Service runs Monday to Saturday with no Sunday service, half hourly at weekday peaks and hourly otherwise, and parking at the station is free.
The commuter rail fare is distance based rather than flat: two dollars fifty for one station and sixty cents for each additional station, with the longest run on the line, Provo to Ogden, capping at nine dollars seventy one way. A local one way ticket is two dollars fifty and stays valid for two hours, and a day pass is five dollars. Parking at the Roy station is free. The transit authority publishes no number of parking spaces for Roy, so any stall count you find quoted comes from a source that is not the transit authority.
Three state highways and one diagonal. SR-97 is 5600 South, running east to the base gate and west into Hooper, where the same alignment becomes 5500 South. SR-126 is 1900 West, the north to south spine through the middle of the city. SR-26, Riverdale Road, has its statutory western end in Roy at 1900 West, with the retail run east of that belonging to Riverdale and Ogden. And SR-108, Midland Drive, comes north out of Davis County and ends at 1900 West, cutting diagonally across a grid that is otherwise perfectly square.
On six days a week, yes. The FrontRunner platform at 4155 S Sandridge Drive is about five minutes from most Roy addresses, parking there is free, and Salt Lake Central is roughly thirty miles south in a straight line. Trains run half hourly at weekday peaks and hourly the rest of the time. The two things to check before committing are the timetable, since the transit authority publishes no journey time on its station list and the line is not straight, and Sunday, because there is no Sunday service at all on this line.
One gate, one exit, one platform and a fence line that is a boundary and nothing more.
Transport is the strongest single argument for a Roy address and it is worth testing rather than taking on trust. Drive the specific street to the freeway at the hour your household would actually use it, because a hundred thousand vehicles a day pass through the area around exit 338. Time the walk or the drive to the rail platform from the property, because ten minutes and twenty five minutes to a train are different lives for anybody commuting south. If the parcel sits toward the southern edge of the city, ask the city planning department what applies to that address, since a local government rather than the Air Force holds the answer for a specific piece of ground. And check which side of the city line the parcel is on, because along this southern edge that is not obvious from an address. Tell me what you are weighing and I will introduce you to a Weber and Morgan partner agent who drives these roads daily, 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.