The northern terminus of I-880 is in Oakland at the junction with I-80 and I-580 (known as the MacArthur Maze), near the eastern approach of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge.

High-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes along I-880 between the Milpitas–Fremont line at Dixon Landing Road and Lewelling Boulevard in San Lorenzo opened in October 2020.

The southbound express lanes extend north to Hegenberger Road in Oakland and south to SR 237 in Milpitas.

[8] As of January 2025[update], the HOT lanes' hours of operation is weekdays between 5:00 am and 8:00 pm; they are otherwise free and open to all vehicles at other times.

It then turned north at Cypress Street (now Mandela Parkway), passing through the MacArthur Maze and following a newly constructed alignment (signed as US 40) to El Cerrito.

[15][16][17][18][19][20] The first short piece of the new Eastshore Freeway opened to traffic on July 22, 1949, connecting Oak Street downtown with 23rd Avenue.

[25] At the San Jose end, the overlap with Route 5 between Bayshore Highway (US 101) and Warm Springs was bypassed on July 2, 1954.

[26] Within Oakland, the double-decker Cypress Street Viaduct opened on June 11, 1957, connecting the freeway with the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge.

A large double-decker section in Oakland, known as the Cypress Street Viaduct, collapsed during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, causing 42 deaths; initial estimates were significantly higher, but, because many commuters on both sides of the bay had left early or stayed late to watch Game 3 of the San Francisco–Oakland World Series, the freeway was far less crowded than normal at the time of the quake.

[40] Although only about three miles (4.8 km) in length, the replacement freeway cost over $1.2 billion (equivalent to $1.97 billion in 2023[41]), and did not open until 1997 for several reasons: it crossed over and under the elevated Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) line to San Francisco; it squeezed between a postoffice, the West Oakland station, the Port of Oakland, a railyard, and an East Bay Municipal Utility District sewage treatment plant; it occupied an entirely new right-of-way, which required the acquisition of large amounts of valuable industrial real estate near the Port of Oakland; and it had to be earthquake resistant.

In that same study, the FHWA produced an analysis to support the fact that adequate wetlands mitigation had been designed into the improvement project.

During the 1989 widening of I-880 in parts of Newark and Fremont, scientific studies were conducted to determine the need for sound walls and to design optimum heights to achieve Federal noise standards.

[45] Because of its proximity to the runways at San Jose International Airport, Caltrans cannot construct elevated ramps without them interfering with flight paths.

Tunneling underneath to build underground ramps would also make a significant environmental impact to the nearby Guadalupe River.

[45] On April 29, 2007, a gasoline tanker overturned and caught fire on the connector between westbound I-80 and southbound I-880 on the MacArthur Maze interchange.