Big Wins for East Palo Alto: $25M in New Transit Investments
The San Mateo County Transportation Authority just funded $25M in projects that boost mobility for East Palo Alto—Dumbarton West Connector design, EPX service expansion, and Ride Plus to Palo Alto Transit Center. Here’s why this matters.
This year the San Mateo County Transportation Authority funded 3 projects that I think East Palo Alto residents should be aware of:
- Dumbarton West Connector - $16.25M. Funds for plans, environmental clearance, and design for the Dumbarton transportation corridor between East Palo Alto and Redwood City. This project actually scored the highest out of all projects!
- EPX Service - $4.43M to support 4 years of continued operation of EPX. Headways have been reduced from I think 60 minutes to 45 minutes!
- Ride Plus expanded operations to Palo Alto Transit Center: $5M. Goes into effect I think sometime this year. Currently it only operates in EPA and Belle Haven. This is a big win.
You can find more details on the TA Regional Transit Connections (RTC) Program 2025 Cycle 1 Measure W Call for Projects, project descriptions list.
Transportation Authority
The San Mateo County Transportation Authority (TA) plans, funds, and delivers transportation programs and projects throughout San Mateo County.
The TA manages the voter-approved Measure A and Measure W sales taxes that generate revenue to help improve transit and relieve congestion. The TA is an independent agency and is governed by an appointed board of seven directors, who are elected officials, representing the county, cities and the San Mateo County Transit District.
The above excerpt is from the TA's website.
Projects
Dumbarton West Connector
SamTrans acquired the Dumbarton Rail Corridor in early 1994 with the goals of creating a trans-Bay rail corridor (Wiki). Over the following 3 decades, the Dumbarton Rail has encountered many funding problems. In 2016, Facebook revived the project with $1M of funding to study different methods to improve traffic over the Dumbarton corridor. Starting in 2024/2025, SamTrans decided to take a fresh look at the Dumbarton Corridor (SamTrans project web page), by focusing on a potential bus rapid transit (BRT) connecting East Palo Alto to Redwood City, without any connection the East Bay due to costs.
The $16.25M funds allocated by the TA this year is the first significant funding that I have seen towards the project. Building something on the Dumbarton Rail corridor continues to be on TA's transportation expenditure plan and it consists of 2% of Measure A funds (which amounts to $30M).
As shown below, the P1 bus rapid transit in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania runs adjacent to a rail line. It is fast, scenic, and is used by many riders because it gets its own right of way which cars cannot go on.
EPX
The EPX is an express bus that I wrote about in these 2 blog posts:
Christopher Kao
Christopher Kao
It is one of only 3 express buses operated by SamTrans: the other 2 being the PCX (Pacifica to Daly City BART) and the FCX (Foster City to San Francisco).
I know some EPA residents who take the EPX all the way to SF Salesforce Transit Center on the early morning lines which go up to SF.
Ride Plus
Ride Plus is a microtransit service run by SamTrans which I wrote about in this blog post:
Christopher Kao
I know a few East Palo Alto residents who do not have a car and rely exclusively on SamTrans buses and Ride Plus microtransit.
How to Get Involved
If you are interested in any of these topics, consider applying to the Transportation Authority's community advisory committee. I actually just got appointed on in July 2025 and will have my first meeting in September 2025.
Listed on the approved Cycle 1 Measure W project descriptions, “SamTrans First/Last-Mile Plan” is something for PWTC to keep an eye on. There’s $1M earmarked for first/last-mile projects, and the plan is currently still being developed.
Conclusion
I was very happy about these funded projects, and I was also very surprised that I hadn't heard anything about them in City Council meetings, public works & transportation commission meetings, or anywhere on social media. Therefore, I wanted to share this news to show the continued investment in East Palo Alto's connectivity to the region.
