Starting north of Lowry Avenue, North Washington Avenue runs straight south, with Interstate 94 running alongside it until just south of West Broadway, when the freeway turns to the west.

The street continues running straight until just south of Plymouth Avenue, where it turns in a southeasterly direction heading for Downtown Minneapolis.

This area, once known as the Gateway District, was heavily affected by urban renewal policies of the 1950s and 60s, destroying what had at one point been the heart of the city.

Dozens of city blocks were bulldozed and replaced with modern glass structures - or in many cases, surface parking lots.

East of the river, Washington Avenue Southeast acts as a major thoroughfare through the University of Minnesota campus; a portion of this section has been converted to a transit mall to facilitate the METRO Green Line, opened in June 2014, along with METRO bus service which ran on Washington for decades until the reconfiguration.