Foster City
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Foster City

Foster City

Planned Bay Area lagoon city built on tidal marsh, with waterfront trails and suburban calm.

Foster City is a planned community of about 33,000 on the western shore of San Francisco Bay in San Mateo County, built on a tidal marsh in the 1960s. The city is known for its network of lagoons and waterways, which residents use for kayaking, windsurfing, and paddleboarding. Leo J. Ryan Memorial Park on the bayfront has good views across the bay to the East Bay hills.

Foster City has no real historic centre — it was designed from scratch — but the waterfront trails and lagoon system give it a pleasant, almost resort-like feel for a suburban community. It makes a comfortable base for exploring the Bay Area peninsula, sitting halfway between San Francisco and San Jose.

Guide

Getting There

Foster City is not directly served by Caltrain or BART. The nearest Caltrain stations are Hillsdale (in nearby San Mateo, about 3 kilometres west) and Hayward Park (San Mateo), both on the San Francisco to San Jose line. SamTrans buses run between Foster City and these stations.

By car, Foster City is accessed from Highway 92 (the San Mateo Bridge approach) and is about 30 kilometres south of San Francisco on Highway 101. The San Francisco International Airport is 12 kilometres north.

San Jose International Airport is about 35 kilometres south. Both airports are accessible by highway in 20 to 40 minutes depending on traffic.

Guide

Things to Do

Foster City's main attraction is its waterfront and lagoon system. Leo J. Ryan Memorial Park on the San Francisco Bay shoreline has a long promenade with views across the bay to the East Bay hills, a marina, and open grass areas that fill up on weekends. The park is named after the US congressman killed in the Jonestown massacre in 1978 — he represented this district.

The lagoons that thread through the residential streets are used year-round for kayaking, windsurfing, and paddleboarding. Equipment rentals are available. The Seal Slough channel at the northern edge of the city supports a small population of harbour seals that haul out on the mudflats at low tide.

The city is otherwise suburban and quiet. It makes a comfortable, reasonably priced base for exploring the San Francisco Peninsula — Silicon Valley is immediately to the south, and San Francisco is 30 kilometres north.