U.S. Route 30 in Indiana

U.S. Route 30 (US 30) is a road in the United States Numbered Highway System that runs from Astoria, Oregon, to Atlantic City, New Jersey. In Indiana, the route runs from the Illinois state line at Dyer to the Ohio state line east of Fort Wayne and New Haven. The 155.96 miles (250.99 km) of US 30 that lie within Indiana serve as a major conduit. The entire length of U.S. Route 30 in Indiana is included in the National Highway System (NHS). The highway includes four-lane, rural sections, an urbanized, four-lane divided expressway, and several high-traffic, six-lane freeway areas. First designated as a US Highway in 1926, US 30 replaced the original State Road 2 (SR 2) and SR 44 designation of the highway which dated back to the formation of the Indiana State Road system. A section of the highway originally served as part of the Lincoln Highway. Realignment and construction projects have expanded the highway to four lanes across the state, and the road is now part of a long stretch of US 30 from New Lenox, Illinois, to Canton, Ohio, where the road has at least four lanes (excluding ramps). There are over 40 traffic signals between I-65 at Merrillville and I-69 at Fort Wayne.

This article is about the section of U.S. Route 30 in Indiana. For the entire route, see U.S. Route 30.

U.S. Route 30
Lincoln Highway
US 30 highlighted in red
Route information
Maintained by INDOT
Length	156.217 mi[1] (251.407 km)
Existed	November 11, 1926[2][3]–present
Major junctions
West end	US 30 at Illinois state line
	US 41 in Schererville I-65 in Merrillville US 421 in Wanatah US 31 in Plymouth US 33 near Fort Wayne I-69 in Fort Wayne US 27 / SR 3 in Fort Wayne I-469 near New Haven
East end	US 30 at Ohio state line
Location
Counties	Lake, Porter, LaPorte, Starke, Marshall, Kosciusko, Whitley, Allen
Highway system
United States Numbered Highway System List Special Divided Indiana Highways Interstate US State Scenic ← SR 29 US 31 →

Route description

The entire length of U.S. Route 30 in Indiana is included in the National Highway System (NHS),[4] a network of highways that are identified as being most important for the economy, mobility and defense of the United States.[5] The highway is maintained by the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT), similar to all other U.S. Highways in the state. The department tracks the traffic volumes along all state highways as a part of its maintenance responsibilities using a metric called average annual daily traffic (AADT), calculated along a segment of roadway for any average day of the year. In 2010, INDOT figured that lowest traffic levels were 10,870 vehicles and 4,750 commercial vehicles used the highway daily between US 31 and SR 331. The peak traffic volumes were 69,280 vehicles and 12,660 commercial vehicles AADT along a section of US 30 that is concurrent with I-69, between the Lima Road (interchange 311) and Coldwater Road (interchange 312) exits in Fort Wayne.[6]

Illinois to Valparaiso

US 30 enters Dyer from Lynwood, Illinois, along the original alignment of the Lincoln Highway, as a four-lane divided highway. At Moeller Street, the roadway becomes a four-lane highway with a center turn lane before reaching an at-grade intersection with CSX railroad tracks. Thereafter, the road returns to four-lane divided highway before a traffic light at US 41 in Schererville and passing under Norfolk Southern railroad tracks. After US 41, the original alignment of the Lincoln Highway leaves US 30 and continues along the same route as old State Road 330 (SR 330). US 30 begins to curve towards the southeast, still as a four-lane divided highway. The highway has a traffic light at SR 55, heading east as the roadway enters Merrillville, where the route becomes a six-lane divided highway and has an interchange at Interstate 65 (I-65). At Colorado Street in Merrillville, the road narrows back to a four-lane divided highway.[7][8][9]

US Route 30 in Indiana.

After a traffic light at the southern terminus of SR 51 in Hobart, the original alignment of the Lincoln Highway rejoins US 30. The highway passes through a mix of farmland and residential properties on the way to Valparaiso, entering the city and passing through commercial properties. The highway has a traffic light at SR 2 at the western end of the concurrency of the two roads. From there, the road crosses railroad tracks, passes south of Valparaiso University, and has a traffic light at the eastern terminus of SR 130. After passing the traffic light at SR 130, the road has a full interchange with SR 49 and the eastern terminus of the SR 2 and US 30 concurrency. Continuing east, the road passes the Porter County Municipal Airport and proceeds east-southeast from Valparaiso, towards Plymouth.

Valparaiso to Allen County

After leaving the Valparaiso area, US 30 passes through rural farmland, with an intersection at US 421 northeast of Wanatah and an at-grade railroad crossing with the Chesapeake and Indiana Railroad. East of the railroad tracks is an intersection with SR 39 and a bridge across the Kankakee River.[7][8][9] Then the route briefly swings slightly to the north of the old Lincoln Highway alignment to accommodate an interchange at US 35.

US 30 runs along the north side of Plymouth, passing through an interchange with the northern terminus of SR 17 and near the Plymouth Municipal Airport. The route curves around the northeast side of the city, having a major interchange with US 31 before heading east-southeast towards Warsaw. At Bourbon, the highway has an interchange with SR 331. The road curves east before entering Warsaw and has an interchange with SR 15, south of the Warsaw Municipal Airport. After passing the airport, the road enters a mix of commercial and residential properties. As it bypasses Warsaw the highway passes through a highly commercial area and has nine traffic signals within four miles, causing frequent traffic backups. One of these is a traffic light at an old alignment of the Lincoln Highway, before US 30 passes north of Winona Lake and heads towards Columbia City.

At Columbia City, the road turns southeast and has traffic lights at SR 109, SR 9, and SR 205, again closely spaced, resulting in frequent congestion. After SR 205, US 30 heads east towards Fort Wayne, paralleling the Chicago, Fort Wayne and Eastern Railroad.[7][8][9]

Allen County to Ohio

Western Allen County

U.S. Route 30 west of Fort Wayne, Indiana.

US 30 crosses into Allen County at a signalized intersection with Whitley County Road 800 East (signed as County Line Road). After passing a pair of abandoned rest areas, the four-lane divided highway with partial access control then becomes a full access controlled freeway just east of the signalized intersection at Kroemer Road. Immediately thereafter, there is a trumpet interchange with US 33 (Goshen Road), at the western terminus of US 33's concurrency with US 30. From there, the joined routes proceed southeast as a six-lane (counting auxiliary lanes) freeway, passing under Hillegas Road, to a cloverleaf interchange with I-69. At that junction, US 33 joins southbound I-69 (and westbound US 24), while US 30 loops to the north, to run concurrent with both northbound I-69 and eastbound US 24. The through lanes revert to an urban arterial and continue southeast into Fort Wayne as Goshen Road, carrying SR 930 only as far as Coliseum Boulevard (where it departs to the east, leaving Goshen Road to revert to an undivided city street).

Fort Wayne to New Haven

US 30's concurrency with I-69 is a six-lane urban interstate with interchanges at Lima Road (US 27 and SR 3) and Coldwater Road (formerly SR 327 and prior to that, US 27). At the interchange of I-69 and I-469, US 30 heads east concurrent with I-469 to loop around the north and east sides of Fort Wayne, heading toward New Haven. I-469 is a four-lane interstate passing through a mix of farmland and suburban residential properties. Initially proceeding east, the interstate crosses the St. Joseph River and has an interchange at Maplecrest Road before turning southeast, then south around the northeast side of Fort Wayne to subsequent interchanges with SR 37 followed by US 24. After the US 24 interchange, the interstate crosses the Maumee River and Norfolk Southern railroad tracks before US 30 departs I-469 east of downtown New Haven at the eastern terminus of SR 930.

Eastern Allen County

After I-469, US 30 heads southeast away from New Haven, passing through rural farmland as a four-lane divided highway with partial access control. The route bypasses the tiny hamlets of Zulu, Tillman, and Townley with an intersection at SR 101 just to the north of the latter. US 30 completes its journey across the Hoosier State and enters Ohio (at State Line Road), continuing southeast toward Van Wert.[7][8][9]

History

Lincoln Highway shield.

The Lincoln Highway was planned in 1913 to run west to east across Indiana, including to South Bend and Fort Wayne. In 1915, the highway opened and passed through downtown Fort Wayne on its route through Indiana,[10] and was assigned the designation of Main Market route number 2 in 1917.[11][12] Further designations saw the route become SR 2 from the Illinois state line to Valparaiso, SR 44 Valparaiso to Fort Wayne and SR 2 from Fort Wayne to the Ohio state line. In the early 1920s, the Lincoln Highway was moved south between Valparaiso and Fort Wayne, to what is now known mostly as Old US 30, passing through Plymouth and Warsaw.[13] A section of US 30 in Dyer known as the "ideal section" of the Lincoln Highway was opened in 1923 and rebuilt in the 1990s.[14][15] In 1924, the sections of the road that were part of the original Lincoln Highway was paved,[16][17] followed by the paving of the rest of US 30, which was commissioned in 1926.[15][18][19] In 1927, a small realignment between Hanna and SR 29 (current US 35) took place.[19][20]

During the 1950s, US 30 in Fort Wayne was rerouted to a "circumurban" highway that was built along portions of the alignments of Beuter Road and California Road, to bypass most of Fort Wayne. But this "circumurban" route, later renamed Coliseum Boulevard since it passes directly by the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum, quickly became a congested urban highway in its own right as it was not built to freeway standards. In 1998, US 30 in Fort Wayne was again rerouted onto I-69 and I-469, becoming a true controlled access freeway bypass for most of Fort Wayne and New Haven on the north and east side of the two cities. The old Coliseum Boulevard routing was assigned the SR 930 designation as a result, when local officials refused to let INDOT fully decommission the route and turn responsibility for it over to the cities or the county.[21]

Major intersections

County	Location	mi[1]	km	Exit[1]	Destinations	Notes
Lake	Dyer	0.000	0.000		US 30 west – Joliet	Illinois state line
	Schererville	2.864	4.609		US 41 (South Indianapolis Boulevard) – St. John, Hammond, Highland
	Merrillville	8.586	13.818		SR 55 (Taft Street) – Crown Point
		10.095	16.246		SR 53 (Broadway)
		10.430– 10.821	16.785– 17.415		I-65 – Indianapolis, Chicago	Exit 253 on I-65
	Hobart	14.114	22.714		SR 51 north / Grand Boulevard – Hobart	Southern terminus of SR 51
Porter	Valparaiso	24.348	39.184		SR 2 west	Western end of SR 2 concurrency
		26.507	42.659		SR 2 east / SR 49 – Valparaiso, Kouts, Chesterton	Eastern end of SR 2 concurrency; interchange
LaPorte	Wanatah	33.753	54.320		US 421 – Michigan City, La Crosse
	Hanna	42.260	68.011		SR 39 – North Judson, LaPorte
Starke	Davis Township	48.360	77.828		US 35 – Knox, LaPorte	interchange
	Grovertown	54.558	87.803		SR 23 – Walkerton, Koontz Lake
Marshall	Plymouth	64.797	104.281		SR 17 south – Plymouth	Northern terminus of SR 17; interchange
		67.070	107.939		US 31 – South Bend, Indianapolis	Exit 225 on US 31; interchange
	Bourbon	75.831	122.038		SR 331 – Bremen, Bourbon, Mishawaka	interchange
Kosciusko	Etna Green	80.075	128.868		SR 19
	Warsaw	90.500	145.646		SR 15 – Warsaw, Goshen	interchange
	Pierceton	99.626	160.333		SR 13 – North Webster, Syracuse, North Manchester, Manchester University
Whitley	Larwill	104.111	167.550		SR 5 – Ligonier, South Whitley, Huntington
	Columbia City	111.258	179.052		SR 109 north / Line Street – Wolf Lake
		111.580	179.571		SR 9 – Albion, Huntington, Columbia City
		112.857	181.626		SR 205 – Columbia City, Churubusco, South Whitley
Allen	Fort Wayne	127.588	205.333		US 33 north – Elkhart, Churubusco	Western end of US 33 concurrency
		127.971– 128.212	205.949– 206.337	309	I-69 south / US 24 west / US 33 south – Indianapolis SR 930 east (Goshen Road) – Fort Wayne	Southern end of I-69 concurrency; western end of US 24 concurrency; eastern end of US 33 concurrency; western end of SR 930
		129.993	209.203	311	US 27 south / SR 3 north / Lima Road – Fort Wayne, Kendallville	Northern terminus of US 27; southern terminus of SR 3
		131.295	211.299	312	Coldwater Road	Serves IPFW, Ivy Tech, Allen County War Memorial Coliseum, and Glenbrook Square
		134.003	215.657	315 31	I-69 north – Lansing MI. I-469 east	Northern end of I-69 concurrency; western end of I-469 concurrency; exit 315 on I-69 and exit 31 on I-469
		136.258	219.286	29	Maplecrest Road
		140.250	225.710	25	SR 37 north / Maysville Road – Fort Wayne, Hicksville	Southern terminus of SR 37
	New Haven	143.951	231.667	21	US 24 east	Eastern end of US 24 concurrency
		145.404	234.005	19	I-469 south / SR 930 – New Haven, Fort Wayne	Southern end of I-469 concurrency; eastern terminus of SR 930
	Monroe Township	152.835	245.964		SR 101 – Townley, Woodburn, Monroeville
		156.217	251.407		US 30 east – Van Wert, Upper Sandusky, Mansfield	Ohio state line
1.000 mi = 1.609 km; 1.000 km = 0.621 mi       Concurrency terminus

See also

•  U.S. Roads portal
•  Indiana portal

References

1. Indiana Department of Transportation (July 2016). Reference Post Book (PDF). Indianapolis: Indiana Department of Transportation. Retrieved August 18, 2017.
2. Weingroff, Richard F. (January 9, 2009). "From Names to Numbers: The Origins of the US Numbered Highway System". Federal Highway Administration. Retrieved August 23, 2012.
3. United States System of Highways Adopted for Uniform Marking by the American Association of State Highway Officials (Map). 1:7,000,000. Cartography by U.S. Geological Survey. Bureau of Public Roads. November 11, 1926. OCLC 32889555. Retrieved November 7, 2013.
4. National Highway System: Indiana (PDF) (Map). Federal Highway Administration. December 2003. Retrieved August 18, 2012.
5. "National Highway System". Federal Highway Administration. August 26, 2010. Retrieved August 18, 2012.
6. "INDOT Traffic Zones". Indiana Department of Transportation. 2010. Archived from the original on May 5, 2011. Retrieved August 20, 2012.
7. Google (August 20, 2012). "Overview of US 30 in Indiana" (Map). Google Maps. Google. Retrieved August 20, 2012.
8. Indiana Transportation Map (PDF) (Map). Cartography by INDOT. Indiana Department of Transportation. 2011–2012. § A3-A5. Retrieved August 20, 2012.
9. Indiana Railroad Map (PDF) (Map). Cartography by INDOT. Indiana Department of Transportation. August 23, 2011. Retrieved August 20, 2012.
10. Leininger, Kevin (May 5, 2009). "Lincoln Highway: Road's hidden past could be route to future". The News-Sentinel. Fort Wayne. p. 1A. OCLC 8807796.
11. "1917 Indiana State Highway Map and State Highway Commission" (Map). Report of State Highway Commission. Cartography by ISHC. Indiana State Highway Commission. Retrieved September 1, 2012.
12. Indiana Main Market Highway Map (Map). Cartography by ISHC. Indiana State Highway Commission. June 1, 1917. Retrieved September 1, 2012.
13. Zorn, Tim (October 19, 2001). "You don't have to look hard, old route through Northwest Indiana still exists". Post-Tribune. Gary. p. LH4. OCLC 2266386. Retrieved August 23, 2012.
14. Renderman, Vanessa; Wieland, Phil (October 3, 2010). "US 30: The region's road". The Times. Munster. OCLC 42819936.
15. Weingroff, Richard (April 7, 2011). "The Lincoln Highway". Federal Highway Administration. Retrieved August 22, 2012.
16. Indiana Transportation Map of 1923 (Map). Cartography by ISHC. Indiana State Highway Commission. September 30, 1923. Retrieved August 22, 2012.
17. Indiana Transportation Map of 1924 (PDF) (Map). Cartography by ISHC. Indiana State Highway Commission. September 30, 1924. Retrieved August 22, 2012.
18. Indiana Transportation Map of 1925 (Map). Cartography by ISHC. Indiana State Highway Commission. September 30, 1925. |access-date= requires |url= (help)
19. Indiana Transportation Map of 1926 (Map). Cartography by ISHC. Indiana State Highway Commission. September 30, 1926. |access-date= requires |url= (help)
20. Indiana Transportation Map of 1927 (PDF) (Map). Cartography by ISHC. Indiana State Highway Commission. September 30, 1927. Retrieved August 22, 2012.
21. Leininger, Kevin (September 8, 2009). "We need solution for Indiana 930". OCLC 8807796. Archived from the original on September 17, 2017. Retrieved August 30, 2012.

External links

Template:Attached KML/U.S. Route 30 in Indiana

KML is from Wikidata

• Media related to US 30 in Indiana at Wikimedia Commons

U.S. Route 30
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