Let's start off in Dallas, where I-30 once began. It actually began east of downtown, with I-20 coming in on what is now just US 80 and taking over the entirety of what's now I-30 from there west as the (originally tolled) Dallas-Fort Worth Turnpike. But I was flying to the west, so from there we see the Dallas skyline rising in the middle of an inner loop of freeways. Let's start with the subject highway, I-30, which comes from the bottom left of my photo and heads east out the top right. Along the way there's a surprising 4-level stack interchange with a surface street, Cesar Chavez Blvd. - it becomes TX 310 to the south and carried US 75 to Galveston before I-45 came into existence. Those ramps come down in the median of I-30 to the east so as not to interfere with the 4-level I-45 stack just beyond. I-45 comes in from the right, ends at I-30, and becomes the hidden I-345 (only signed as US 75 for some reason) across the top of the image, the east side of the loop. I-345 ends at the complex 3-Y at top left, with US 75 continuing north (off the page) and TX Spur 366 coming back onto the north side of the loop. That interchanges with I-35E at the bottom left of this photo, which completes the west side of the loop back to I-30.


Looking a bit closer at how I-30 and I-35E run together without being a multiplex. I-30 comes in the bottom and runs the median, I-35E crosses from left to right and straddles I-30, and just enjoy all those ramps connecting them as they run together under the Houston St. and Jefferson Blvd. Viaducts coming off the Trinity River (just below this photo).


Speaking of just below that photo, here are the Trinity River crossings west of downtown Dallas. I-30 is the one on the right through the arches of the Margaret McDermott Bridge. Skipping the boring Commerce St. bridge in the middle, the complementary bridge on the left happens to also be a Margaret: the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge on TX Spur 366. The arch is lateral instead of longitudinal and that lends it the common name "Hoop Bridge". As before, I-35E links them all at top, on the east side of the river.


Here, have some more Margaret McDermott Bridge from above.


On highway BGS's, the square shield is even used for Farm-to-Market and Ranch-to-Market roads, as it has been since the button copy (and lack of exit number) days. This was on I-30/US 67 east of Dallas in 1978, courtesy Michael Summa, and might give a destination of Caddo Mills if it were so inclined. By following the southern frontage road a short distance west, one can get to more of FM 1565, which should probably have been signed from here (i.e. remove the NORTH and insert a destination).


Texas loves their wide shields. But they hate trucks in Greenville, so much so that the US highways were torn out and routed around the bottom of the city. Courtesy Lou Corsaro, US 67 SB is along for the ride here, never leaving I-30's side by more than a few miles from Little Rock to Dallas, marking the only instance of a primary Interstate highway in one direction fully paired with a primary US highway in the perpendicular direction. (I-30 between Dallas and Fort Worth follows an original Turnpike that was first incorporated into I-20 before 20 was rerouted south of the cities, so the original route of 30 was never separate from US 67.)


The bottom of the EB Exit 94 ramp. Texas letters its business routes, usually putting the letter in the bottom of the shield, but here it ends up to the side. "North" and "South" would do a lot of good here, as opposed to having "Business" above both shields with no modifier. Before US 69 was rerouted around Greenville, this assembly may have read "North"/"South" and been correct, and TxDOT simply replaced the directional banners with "Business". If TxDOT couldn't find a way to add Business banners without removing the directionals, there had to be SOME better solution than this.


Rare state-name shield sighting at Exit 162.


Through construction at Exit 220A, where US 59 SB leaves to the right in the first photo to head south as part of Texarkana's Loop, courtesy Lou Corsaro. The ramps are about to become fully directional instead of the old trumpet interchange with a loop for the SB through movement. All directions get to soar in the air even though that seems unnecessary for the right-turn ramps to and from I-30 EB. But it makes sense given the primary purpose of the project - to thread frontage roads through here where there are none currently. Well, then, they'll need to get over that EB road, won't they?


From about the point of Lou's second photo above, two years later in 2011 the new US 59 SB ramp is partially open.


The TX 93 overpass at Exit 222, EB.

Exit 220A to US 59 alone

Onto US 380
Into Arkansas on I-30
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