L'Enfant Plaza (Washington Metro)

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This article describes the Washington Metro station. For the physical plaza, see L'Enfant Plaza.

L'Enfant Plaza

Station statistics

Address

600 Maryland Avenue, Southwest
Washington, DC 20024

Lines

Metro: Blue Line, Orange Line, Yellow Line, Green Line
VREX: Fredericksburg Line, Manassas Line

Other service

Silver Line (planned)

Platforms

Side platforms (upper level)
Center platform (lower level)

Tracks

four

Other information

Opened

July 1, 1977

Accessible

Code

F03 (upper level)
D03 (lower level)

Owned by

Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority

Fare zone

Zone 1 (VRE)

Services

Previous station	Washington Metro	Next station
Waterfront-SEU toward Branch Avenue	Green	Archives-Navy Mem'l-Penn Quarter toward Greenbelt
Pentagon toward Huntington	Yellow	Archives-Navy Mem'l-Penn Quarter toward Fort Totten
Smithsonian toward Franconia-Springfield	Blue	Federal Center SW toward Largo Town Center
Smithsonian toward Vienna/Fairfax-GMU	Orange	Federal Center SW toward New Carrollton
Smithsonian toward Route 772	Silver	Federal Center SW toward Stadium-Armory
Previous station	Virginia Railway Express	Next station
Crystal City toward Broad Run/Airport	Manassas Line	Washington Terminus
Crystal City toward Fredericksburg	Fredericksburg Line	Washington Terminus

Station entrance pylon at L'Enfant Plaza.

L'Enfant Plaza is a Washington Metro station in Washington, D.C. served by the Blue, Green, Orange, and Yellow Lines. It is a transfer station with the Blue and Orange lines on the lower level, crossed by the Yellow and Green lines on the upper level. It is also where the Yellow and Green lines converge going north. It is the only station in the system to be served by four lines; when the Silver Line begins service in 2011, it will be the only station in the system to be served by five lines. In other words, the Red Line is the only line not to serve this station at all.

The station is located in Southwest, with entrances at the L'Enfant Plaza mall concourse at 9th and D Streets, on D Street between 6th and 7th Streets, at Maryland Avenue and 7th Street, and in the courtyard of the Department of Transportation building. It is in the center of an area crowded with federal buildings, and is a transfer station to easily cross the Potomac between Virginia and central Washington, making it a very busy station. Service began on the Blue and Orange level on July 1, 1977, and on the Green and Yellow level on April 30, 1983. This is the only case where a station's lower level began service before the upper level.

It is somewhat of a joke amongst veteran Metro riders that Metro train operators commonly mispronounce the French name "L'Enfant" as "luh-font." The correct pronunciation is "lohn-FOHN," the "t" is silent and the first "n" is not.

L'Enfant Plaza is named for the French architect of the Federal District, Pierre Charles L'Enfant.