Great Streets Urban Design

Washington, DC

Great Streets is a comprehensive strategy to utilize public investments in infrastructure, streetscape improvements, land use planning, and development assistance to catalyze private investment that improves neighborhood quality of life and creates a setting for expanded retail, housing, employment, services, and other community needs.

The program’s intent is to upgrade the corridor along its whole length and change public and market perceptions of the emerging communities that border it. The Great Street corridors encompass over 22 miles of roadway bridging over 50 distinct neighborhoods with diverse needs and visions.

The program consists of six corridors that were selected because they are not in the central business district, are not grand boulevards, and are not the well-known signature streets of the city. The corridors are the working main streets of local neighborhoods. They are also major gateways into the center city and as such many carry heavy volumes of commuter traffic.

Six corridors:
• Pennsylvania Avenue, SE
• H St NE & Benning Road NE/SE
• Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE and South Capitol Street
• Nannie Helen Burroughs Ave, NE
• Minnesota Avenue, NE/SE
• Georgia Ave NW & 7th St. NW