Kentucky Route 30 (KY 30) is an east–west

state highway A state highway, state road, or state route (and the equivalent provincial highway, provincial road, or provincial route) is usually a road that is either ''numbered'' or ''maintained'' by a sub-national state or province. A road numbered by a ...

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

managed by the

Kentucky Transportation Cabinet The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) is Kentucky's state-funded agency charged with building and maintaining federal highways and Kentucky state highways, as well as regulating other transportation related issues. The Transportation Cabi ...

. It goes through

Laurel Laurel may refer to: Plants * Lauraceae, the laurel family * Laurel (plant), including a list of trees and plants known as laurel People * Laurel (given name), people with the given name * Laurel (surname), people with the surname * Laurel (mus ...

Jackson Jackson may refer to: People and fictional characters * Jackson (name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the surname or given name Places Australia * Jackson, Queensland, a town in the Maranoa Region * Jackson North, Qu ...

, Owsley, Breathitt, Magoffin Counties.

Route description

KY 30 begins at an intersection with the

Hal Rogers Parkway The Hal Rogers Parkway, formerly named the Daniel Boone Parkway, connects Somerset and Hazard in southeastern Kentucky. This toll road opened in November 1971, and the tolls were removed June 1, 2003. The original extent of the highway was t ...

in London, and goes north as a divided highway until it becomes an undivided two-lane highway about a mile up the road. The road is a recently constructed standard highway with 11ft wide lanes and shoulders on both sides of the road, with a speed limit of 55mph. The road continues through Greenmount into Jackson County. The road then goes through the hilly terrain of Jackson County, and runs past Annville and reaches US 421 at Tyner. At this point, the road is no longer a standard highway and runs as a concurrency to the northern part of Tyner, where it goes east towards Mummie. The road runs a very curvy route and reaches Owsley County where it continues to be curvy until it reaches another newly constructed standard highway at Travellers Rest, which continues past

Vincent Vincent ( la, Vincentius) is a male given name derived from the Roman name Vincentius, which is derived from the Latin word (''to conquer''). People with the given name Artists *Vincent Apap (1909–2003), Maltese sculptor *Vincent van Gogh ...

into

Levi Levi (; ) was, according to the Book of Genesis, the third of the six sons of Jacob and Leah (Jacob's third son), and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Levi (the Levites, including the Kohanim) and the great-grandfather of Aaron, Moses and M ...

where the road intersects with KY 11. From here, the road follows a concurrent route with KY 11 into Booneville and heads west towards

Breathitt County Breathitt County ( ) is a county in the eastern Appalachian portion of the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 13,718. Its county seat is Jackson. The county was formed in 1839 and was named for John B ...

. From here, the road curves and goes into the town of

where it then goes on another curvy route into Magoffin County where it meets its eastern terminus in Salyersville.

New alignment

Work has been done to improve the route of KY 30, to establish it as a corridor between London and the impoverished areas the road currently runs through. Beginning in 2003, KY 30 has been realigned on a ~7 mile segment between London and Greenmount, where construction stalled until 2010 when a ~15 mile segment was completed between Greenmount and Annville, where construction stalled again. In 2014, a ~5 mile segment was completed between Annville and Tyner. In a separate segment, a new ~7 mile alignment was constructed in Owsley County between Levi and Travellers Rest. It is estimated that the road will be completely connected as a new highway between Laurel, Jackson and Owsley Counties by 2022. Another development for the corridor may be under way for KY 11 between Levi and Beattyville to connect the realigned segment to another standard highway, to connect Lee, Powell, and Wolfe Counties to this new corridor that leads to London in Laurel County.

Major intersections

References

External links

Kentucky Route 30 Study Report
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