Palo Alto

Draconian Restrictions

One Bay Area city makes no effort to accommodate truckers.

Embarcadero exit from northbound 101.

Palo Alto is notorious among truckers, and has been for decades. There is zero access from 101. Any delivery (except local residential drops) must go some 5 miles out of the way, and enter through Redwood City (via Woodside Road) or Mountain View (via San Antonio Road), then come back along El Camino or Alma.
Coming from the west, access from 280 via Page Mill Road or Sand Hill is allowed.

The Palo Alto police constantly issue 'Over Weight Limit' tickets along University Avenue (the main route into downtown and Stanford from 101) and several other main roads.
They also maintain a checkpoint on Middlefield Road (at their northern city limit), stopping every truck that comes along. They've ticketed box trucks for being over their 3 Ton Limit that actually weighed only 2 3/4 tons.

Right next door (to the north), Atherton and Menlo Park are basically the same, and should also be avoided. The Menlo Park police have been known to ticket trucks with a legitimate, local residential destination.

The blue circle shows the location of the photo. (The second one, down in the corner, goes with the Sunnyvale page.) The red circles indicate some of the freeway exits and no-go roads to avoid.

Thankfully, no other cities in northern California are so harsh. However, across the Bay, San Pablo and Fremont may be attempting to match them . . .

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