The Anacostia Freeway was first conceived by the
Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission in 1950 as a connector route between the
Baltimore–Washington Parkway at Kenilworth Avenue and the
Capital Beltway near
Oxon Hill. The route would provide access to the Anacostia waterfront, which included
Bolling Air Force Base (Bolling AFB) and
Naval Support Facility Anacostia (NSF Anacostia). In 1955, DC officials approved the portion of the route between
Suitland Parkway and
East Capitol Street; the remainder of the route was approved in 1956. In 1958, the southern portion of the route, from the beltway to the 11th Street Bridges, became a part of the
Interstate Highway System and the route was designated I-295 by the
American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO). I-295 opened in pieces. The first section was from the Beltway to South Capitol Street, and the final section of the route, the from South Capitol Street to the
Pennsylvania Avenue interchange, opened on August 7, 1964. The final part of the project, the connecting ramps to the 11th Street Bridges, opened the following year. In 1990, a section of connecting ramps was built to directly connect I-295 to
MD 210 in order to remove the significant traffic flow between the two routes from the segment of the beltway between both interchanges. These ramps are not considered part of the mainline of I-295. Under the 1971 DC freeway plans, I-295 would have turned east at the northern end of the
11th Street Bridges and followed the
Southeast Freeway as far as
East Capitol Street, where it would turn north and follow the East Leg of the
Inner Loop freeway. The East Leg, six lanes wide, would have curved around the far eastern edge of the downtown area, passing beneath Mt. Olivet Road in a half-mile () tunnel, before terminating at I-66 and I-95 north of
Washington Union Station, providing access to the
North Leg Freeway, the
North Central Freeway, and the
New York Avenue Industrial Freeway. As part of the larger
Woodrow Wilson Bridge reconstruction project, the southern terminus of I-295 has been significantly rebuilt. Several new connections have been constructed to link the beltway, MD 210, and I-295 with the new
National Harbor site on the shore of the
Potomac River in
Prince George's County, Maryland. One feature of the interchange reconstruction is that accommodations were made for future ramps to proposed
high-occupancy vehicle lanes (HOV) on the beltway. This project was completed in stages, starting in 2008 and ending in 2011. The cancelation of both the remainder of the
Southeast Freeway and then the
Barney Circle Freeway left no through connections between the 11th Street Bridges and DC 295 north, leading to severe congestion and major traffic routing problems. These missing movements were included when the northern terminus was reconstructed, allowing direct freeway-grade access to and from DC 295 at the 11th Street Bridges as well as providing a through grade-separated north–south route within DC. Project construction began in 2011 and the ramps opened in 2012. I-295 now terminates at the interchange with the 11th Street Bridges. I-695 extends over the 11th Street Bridges and continues along the Southeast Freeway to the interchange with I-395. In 2017-2022 the
Frederick Douglass Bridge was replaced and, as part of the project, the section of the Anacostia Freeway from Sweetgum Lane north to Chicago Street was replaced, including a new interchange with the Suitland Parkway. ==Future==