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 September 2026, on ground Roy shares with Riverdale. This is the whole of how you get out of this city.
By Scott Buehler, Moving Utah
Updated October 2026
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 a controlled entrance rather than a public road, so using it needs sponsorship, and it keeps weekday hours and is closed on weekends. The interchange outside it was rebuilt from the ground up and reopened in September 2026, on ground Roy shares with Riverdale down the middle. The city's other way out is the train, at 4155 S Sandridge Drive, the only commuter rail platform for four neighboring cities as well as this one.
Is there a Hill Air Force Base gate in Roy?
The gate at exit 338
Yes, and it is the only one in Weber County. The Air Force calls it the North Gate and also 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 needs 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 hours and is closed on weekends and holidays. So which gate anyone uses is a question of when as much as where: a day that runs past the afternoon means leaving by a Davis County exit further south instead. Gate hours and access rules do change over time, so check Hill Air Force Base's own published gate information, or the Davis County guide, before you plan a trip around it.
What is far more useful to a Roy driver is what happens outside the gate rather than at it. Exit 338 is Roy's own interchange, it was rebuilt between the summer of 2023 and September 2026, and it now leads to three quite different things: the freeway in both directions, the free aerospace museum a couple of minutes further on, and 5600 South running west through the whole southern half of the city.
The state of Utah has its own name for the same gate, worth a sentence because it turns up in legal descriptions. The highway designation statute runs SR-97 from Route 37 east along 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 state code says Northwest gate; a driver following the signs at exit 338 never has to choose between them.
The gate, in brief
5600 South, the road that ends at the gate
SR-97 from Hooper to the base
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 becomes 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 navigation app 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 reaches the freeway, the museum, the gate and the Hooper fields out west, and Roy owns the frontage on it from about 1750 West all the way 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 roads that cross Roy
The rebuilt interchange at 5600 South
Reopened September 2026, shared with Riverdale
The interstate interchange at 5600 South was rebuilt from the ground up, and the transport department recorded it finished on 17 September 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, bike lanes and a shared use path. UDOT put traffic in the area at about a hundred thousand vehicles a day and named Roy, Riverdale and Hill Air Force Base as the places the finished work connects.
That naming of two cities is geographically exact, and it is worth knowing before you 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.
The piece a household will actually use on foot is the new pedestrian bridge that carries the D&RGW Rail Trail over 5600 South, near Roy Elementary and Roy Junior High, so that corridor no longer crosses the city's busiest arterial at road level. The trail is on Roy's own list of parks.
One thing to keep in perspective: UDOT published no travel time saving for the new interchange, so there is no official figure to quote. What changed is the layout, the widened arterial, the bike lanes and the shared use path, and the new bridge, all of which you can see from the road.
The interchange, in brief
The FrontRunner platform, the only one for four cities
Free to park, closed on Sundays
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.
Service runs Monday to Saturday, with no Sunday service at all, half hourly during weekday peaks and hourly the rest of the time and on Saturday. Parking at the station is free.
Fares are distance based rather than flat, so a short hop costs a couple of dollars and the price climbs with the number of stations you pass; UTA publishes the current fares. In a straight line Ogden Central is about seven miles north and Salt Lake Central about thirty miles south, though the line is not a straight shot, so the published timetable is the place to get a real journey time.
For a household choosing between Roy and its neighbors, this is a genuine difference and worth weighing as one. Being five minutes from this platform and being twenty five minutes from any platform are two different daily routines for anyone working in Salt Lake County, and the gap is measured in hours a week.
One spelling note: the street and the station are Sandridge, one word, while the junior high school a mile away is Sand Ridge, two words. Searching for one will turn up the other.
The station, in brief
How long it takes to get anywhere from Roy
Approximate drive times
The strongest single argument for a Roy address is how easily you get out of it, and it is worth testing at the hour your household would actually drive. Exit 338 puts you on I-15 in both directions, 1900 West and Midland Drive carry you north and south west across the county, and the FrontRunner platform handles the run to Salt Lake County six days a week. The times below are rounded, off peak estimates by the usual route, so treat them as a feel for the distances rather than a timetable.
| Destination | Distance | Drive time |
|---|---|---|
| Downtown Ogden and Ogden Central Station | About 6 miles | About 10 minutes |
| Layton and the Davis County shopping | About 8 miles | About 12 to 15 minutes |
| Hill Aerospace Museum, via exit 338 | About 3 miles | About 5 to 10 minutes |
| Downtown Salt Lake City | About 32 miles | About 40 to 50 minutes |
| Salt Lake City International Airport | About 35 miles | About 35 to 45 minutes |
Rounded, off peak estimates by the usual route. Times on I-15 change with traffic and time of day.
Living with the roads, the train and the gate
Excellent five days a week, ordinary on the other two
The transport case for a Roy address is strong and easy to state. A rebuilt freeway interchange on the southern edge. A commuter rail platform inside the city that four neighboring 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 gate that carries the city's name keeps weekday hours only, so for part of the week the way onto the base is somebody else's exit further south.
The last point is a boundary worth stating plainly. Everything on the far side of that gate, the installation, its gates as a set, their hours, its visitor arrangements, its museum and its history, belongs to the Hill Air Force Base guide in Davis County. What Roy has is a boundary, a road and an exit number, and those are enough to work with.
The Roy Gate is a controlled entrance, not a through road, and it keeps weekday hours. It is closed on weekends and holidays, and using it needs sponsorship, so it is not a public shortcut onto the base or a way to reach the aerospace museum, whose lot sits outside the fence and needs no base access. Gate hours and access rules can change, so confirm the current details with Hill Air Force Base, or the Davis County guide on this site that carries them, before you plan around the gate.
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.
Scott Buehler
Moving Utah About Scott
The gate and the commute, answered
Quick answers
Yes, and it is the only one in Weber County. The Air Force calls it the North Gate and also 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 needs sponsorship, and it keeps weekday 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.
They are weekday hours, and the gate is closed on weekends and holidays. Gate hours and access rules change over time, so the reliable move is to confirm the current opening time with Hill Air Force Base, which publishes it, or with the Davis County guide on this site that carries it. The Roy Gate keeps weekday hours only, so a trip that runs past the afternoon means using a Davis County exit further south.
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. 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. UDOT named both cities, along with Hill Air Force Base, when it announced the finished work on 17 September 2026. Any page that credits the whole interchange to one city alone is only half right.
UDOT recorded it complete on 17 September 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, bike lanes and a shared use path, and built a new pedestrian bridge to carry the rail trail over the road. UDOT did not publish a travel time saving, so there is no official figure to quote.
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 FrontRunner fare is distance based rather than flat, so a short hop costs a couple of dollars and the price climbs with the number of stations you pass. UTA publishes the current fares. Parking at the Roy station is free, and the platform is about five minutes from most Roy addresses.
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. Trains run half hourly at weekday peaks and hourly the rest of the time. The two things to check before you rely on it are the timetable, since the line is not a straight shot and the real journey time is the published one, 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 five minutes and twenty five minutes to a train are different lives for anyone 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.
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