Historical Struggles

East Palo Alto still struggles with issues that have been around since its inception, including the annexation of some of East Palo Alto’s land for the construction of Highway 101. In order to understand East Palo Alto’s place in the Bay Area, Abrica said it is important to understand the historical differences between Palo Alto and East Palo Alto.

“The first thing to know is that Palo Alto is in Santa Clara County, and East Palo Alto is in San Mateo County, which means that they never really have been connected in the sense that the county boundaries make it very difficult to join together,” Abrica said One of the main reasons for this division was Highway 101, built in 1926. Lopez said the freeway was expanded into East Palo Alto in the 1960s, before East Palo Alto became a city in 1983.

“There were quite a few accidents in the bottleneck part of 101, where East Palo Alto is,” Lopez said. “So it was the wisdom of the state of California, in conjunction with other cities, to basically put the freeway directly in the heart of East Palo Alto’s downtown.”

The freeway divided East Palo Alto, weakening its appeal to home buyers and harming its tax base in the time before East Palo Alto was even a city. However, Lopez said the harmful effects don’t stop there.

“There’s a big sound wall, and you think of the quality of someone who’s trying to sleep in an apartment, in the Woodland Apartment, and they just hear the rush of cars constantly all day, all night,” Lopez said. “It’s going to interrupt your sleep, not to mention the exhaust, right?”

The freeway also presents challenges with connectivity within the city. Lopez said East Palo Alto residents have to cross Highway 101 almost daily.

“The folks who live on the west side have to literally go across the bridge every single day to access basic services, food pantries, permits and City Hall,” Lopez said.

Though the freeway improved connectivity throughout California, Lopez said the expansion of Highway 101 deeply hurt East Palo Alto as a city.

“The result of that in the ‘50s and ‘60s was you had businesses displaced from East Palo Alto, so the economic engine of the community was basically cut out from under its feet,” Lopez said. “It was for the sake of the wider region’s ability to have transit and to have connections between the major cities of the Bay Area, but they left us cut in half.”