Developed by Olmsted and Associates, this plan is also known as the Permanent System of Highways.

In the late nineteenth century, Washington was developing beyond the original L’Enfant City. As small municipalities and subdivisions emerged, the street system became poorly connected. Congress authorized the federally appointed DC Board of Commissioners to plan “a permanent system of highways in that part of the District of Columbia lying outside cities” in its Highway Act of 1893. Before the twentieth century, highways generally referred to main pathways connecting urbanized areas.

This plan extended many of the streets contained in the original L’Enfant City to the outlying areas of Washington, while specifying some curvilinear streets or parkways, particularly where difficult topographic conditions existed.