Carroll Gardens is a neighborhood in the northwestern portion of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Encompassing approximately 40 city blocks, it is bounded by Degraw and Warren Streets (north), Hoyt and Smith Streets (east), Ninth Street or the Gowanus Expressway (south), and Interstate 278, the Gowanus and Brooklyn–Queens Expressways (west). The neighborhoods that surround it are Cobble Hill to the northwest, Boerum Hill to the northeast, Gowanus to the east, Red Hook to the south and southwest, and the Columbia Street Waterfront District to the west.

Interstate 278 (I-278) is an auxiliary Interstate Highway in New Jersey and New York in the United States. The road runs 35.62 miles (57.32 km) from US Route 1/9 (US 1/9) in Linden, New Jersey, northeast to the Bruckner Interchange in the New York City borough of the Bronx. The majority of I-278 is in New York City, where it serves as a partial beltway and passes through all five of the city's boroughs. I-278 follows several freeways, including the Union Freeway in Union County, New Jersey; the Staten Island Expressway (SIE) across Staten Island; the Gowanus Expressway in southern Brooklyn; the Brooklyn–Queens Expressway (BQE) across northern Brooklyn and Queens; a small part of the Grand Central Parkway in Queens; and a part of the Bruckner Expressway in the Bronx. I-278 also crosses multiple bridges, including the Goethals, Verrazzano-Narrows, Kosciuszko, and Robert F. Kennedy bridges.