The streets and highways of Washington, D.C., form the core of the surface transportation infrastructure in Washington, D.C., the federal capital of the United States. Given that it is a planned city, the city's streets follow a distinctive layout and addressing scheme. There are 1,500 miles (2,400 km) of public roads in the city, of which 1,392 miles (2,240 km) are owned and maintained by city government.
Facsimile of manuscript of Peter Charles L'Enfant's 1791 plan for the federal capital city (United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, 1887).
Thackara & Vallance's 1792 print of Ellicott's "Plan of the City of Washington in the Territory of Columbia", showing street names, lot numbers, depths of the Potoma River and legends
Washington, D.C., is divided into four quadrants: Northwest, Northeast, Southeast, and Southwest. The axes bounding the quadrants radiate from the United States Capitol building.
A street sign for the unit block of G Street Northeast, next to Union Station. Tourists sometimes see this sign as a reference to G-Unit.
District of Columbia Route 295 (DC 295), also known as the Anacostia Freeway as well as the Kenilworth Avenue Freeway north of East Capitol Street, is a freeway in the District of Columbia, and currently the only signed numbered route in the District that is not an Interstate Highway or U.S. Highway. Also, DC 295 is one of the few city-level signed route numbers in the United States, along with Charlotte Route 4. The south end is at the junction of Interstate 295 (I-295), I-695, and the southern end of the 11th Street Bridges though originally I-295 was part of DC 295. Its north end is at the border with Maryland where it connects to Maryland 295, Maryland Route 201 (MD 201), and US Route 50.
View north along DC 295 approaching Pennsylvania Avenue
DC 295 southbound along the Kenilworth Avenue Freeway