Maryland Avenue (Washington, D.C.)
| State-Named Roadways | |
|---|---|
L'Enfant's plan called for grand avenues, many of which are named after the original 13 states
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| Street names | |
| North–south streets: | Numbered |
| East–west streets: | Lettered, then alphabetical naming |
| Diagonal avenues: | U.S. states and Puerto Rico |
| System links | |
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As the capital of the United States, Washington, D.C. has 51 roadways which are named after each state and the territory of Puerto Rico. Many of these roadways are major avenues that serve as the city's principal traffic arteries. Every state lends its name to an avenue except for California Street and Ohio Drive.
While streets in Washington are generally laid out in a grid pattern, the state-named avenues often form diagonal connections between the city's many traffic circles and squares as envisioned in the L'Enfant Plan for the city. However, avenues named for Arizona, Hawaii, Mississippi, and Puerto Rico connect to no other state-named roadways. Avenues named for Connecticut, Georgia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin continue into neighboring Maryland, often as state highways, but none of the state-named avenues continue into Virginia. Most avenues exist in one or two quadrants, except for Massachusetts and Virginia Avenues, which travel through three of the four quadrants (it is geometrically impossible for a straight street to exist in all four quadrants), though they exist in multiple sections.
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Wikipedia