Washington Metro

Coordinates: 38°53′57″N 77°01′44″W / 38.89908°N 77.02897°W / 38.89908; -77.02897

The Washington Metro, commonly called Metro and branded Metrorail, is the rapid transit system serving the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area in the United States. It is administered by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), which also operates Metrobus service under the Metro name. Besides the District, Metro serves several jurisdictions in Maryland and Virginia. In Maryland, Metro provides service to Montgomery and Prince George's counties; in Virginia, to Fairfax and Arlington counties and the independent city of Alexandria. The system is currently being expanded into Loudoun County, Virginia. The Metro service area is largely coextensive with the inner ring of the Washington metropolitan area. Opened in 1976, the network now includes six lines, 91 stations, and 117 miles (188 km) of route.

Metro is the second-busiest rapid transit system in the United States in number of passenger trips, after the New York City Subway. There were 215.3 million trips, or 712,843 trips per weekday, on Metro in fiscal year 2015. In June 2008, Metro set a monthly ridership record with 19,729,641 trips, or 798,456 per weekday. Fares vary based on the distance traveled, the time of day, and the type of card used by the passenger. Riders enter and exit the system using a stored-value card in the form of a paper magnetic stripe farecard or a proximity card called SmarTrip.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as "Washington", "the District", or simply "D.C.", is the capital of the United States. The signing of the Residence Act on July 16, 1790, approved the creation of a capital district located along the Potomac River on the country's East Coast. The U.S. Constitution provided for a federal district under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Congress and the District is therefore not a part of any U.S. state.

The states of Maryland and Virginia each donated land to form the federal district, which included the pre-existing settlements of Georgetown and Alexandria. Named in honor of George Washington, the City of Washington was founded in 1791 to serve as the new national capital. In 1846, Congress returned the land originally ceded by Virginia; in 1871, it created a single municipal government for the remaining portion of the District.

Washington had an estimated population of 672,228 as of July 2015. Commuters from the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs raise the city's population to more than one million during the workweek. The Washington metropolitan area, of which the District is a part, has a population of over 6 million, the seventh-largest metropolitan statistical area in the country.

L'Enfant Plaza

L'Enfant Plaza is a complex of four commercial buildings grouped around a large plaza in the Southwest section of Washington, D.C.. Immediately below the plaza and the buildings is the "La Promenade" shopping mall. The plaza is located south of Independence Avenue SW between 12th and 9th Streets SW (9th Street actually runs underneath the centers of the buildings on the easternmost side of the plaza). It was built perpendicular to L'Enfant Promenade, a north-south running street and pedestrian esplanade part of which is directly above 10th Street SW. The plaza is named for Pierre (Peter) Charles L'Enfant, the architect and planner who first designed a street layout for the capital city. It was dedicated in 1968 after completion of the north and south buildings.

Planning

L'Enfant Plaza was part of the Southwest D.C. urban renewal project, one of the earliest urban renewal projects in the U.S., and the first such in D.C. The rapid expansion of the population of Washington, D.C., during World War II led to the extensive construction of suburban office buildings and housing tracts. But with federal agencies (which were the area's largest employers) restricted to the city center, a movement began after the war to redevelop Washington's older, more dilapidated, single-family-dwelling neighborhoods to provide high-density, modern housing for workers. In 1946, the United States Congress passed the District of Columbia Redevelopment Act, which established the District of Columbia Redevelopment Land Agency (RLA) and provided legal authority to clear land and funds to spur redevelopment in the capital. Congress also gave the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) the authority to designate which land would be redeveloped, and how. The RLA was not funded, however, until passage of the Housing Act of 1949.

Metro

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Public transport

Washington

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Geography

United States

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Outside the United States