Dyl's Roads & Travels: I-794

From I-94 to the Port of Milwaukee, I-794 is a designation stitching two routes together, the East-West Freeway and the Lake Freeway. The East-West Freeway is complete, yet the Lake Freeway is actually a remnant of a larger project, a fully-extended Lake Parkway. Stubs exist for what could have been.

Half of I-794 runs north-south (the Lake Freeway), and half of I-794 runs east-west on the eponymous freeway. Here, signed west on the Lake Freeway corresponds to compass north and vice versa.

Other than the photos within the Marquette Interchange, all photos are westbound.

East-West Freeway

Heading eastbound.

I-794 begins at the giant tangle of ramps known as the Marquette Interchange. This is a four-level stack interchange. Here, the road junctions I-94 and I-43. West of the interchange, I-94 is the East-West Freeway. After this junction, I-94 overlaps I-43 along the North-South Freeway. I-794 continues the East-West Freeway.

I-794 passes through Downtown Milwaukee, serving as the line between the Historic Third Ward to the south and Juneautown to the north. There have been plans floated around to dismantle the East-West Freeway section of I-794 and build an urban boulevard or infill development.

Lake Freeway

Now the fun begins for unbuilt roads. This is the Lake Interchange, where the East-West Freeway ends, the Lake Freeway begins, and I-794 bends. The East-West Freeway was always intended to end here, but the Lake Freeway was intended for more.

For a while, this section of the Lake Freeway, including the Hoan Bridge, sat unused and was used in the car chase scenes of The Blues Brothers.

In addition, the Lake Freeway should have extended further north. The ramps for Michigan Street, Clybourn Street, and Lincoln Memorial Drive originally had stub ramps meant for a northern extension of the Lake Freeway towards the cancelled and dismantled Park Freeway.