The Lake Parkway was originally planned to be a lakeside freeway, named the Lake Freeway, extending from just north of downtown Milwaukee all the way south to the Illinoisstate line connecting with the Amstutz Expressway and possibly following all the way to Lake Shore Drive. Due to protests over construction, the Lake Freeway was never completed, and the Amstutz Expressway in Illinois was similarly never completed. Before the Lake Freeway project was cancelled, a portion of the route was built immediately south of downtown Milwaukee. The Hoan Bridge, a bridge spanning the mouth of the Milwaukee River connecting downtown and Bay View, was constructed. However, the bridge stood unused for three years subsequent to its completion, unconnected to any other road, and locally it was known as the "Bridge to Nowhere". The unfinished bridge was used as the site of a car chase scene in the movie The Blues Brothers. In 1977, the freeway was connected to the East–West Freeway and Carferry Drive, causing traffic from the Lake Freeway to exit and crowd onto surface streets. In the 1990s, construction on what would become the Lake Parkway began along the Union Pacific/former Chicago and North Western Transportation Company right-of-way. The whole project took approximately eight years. The Lake Parkway opened in October 1999. The freeway section of WIS 794—the John R. Plewa Memorial Lake Parkway, as it is formally known—was finally completed to the corner of East Edgerton Avenue and South Pennsylvania Avenue, after six years of terminating at the Layton Avenue off-ramp. Officially, the parkway has four exits:
The Oklahoma Avenue exit, however, requires a traffic light for southbound vehicles to enter. The stoplight is a major reason why the parkway is not considered an Interstate Highway for its entire length. A newly constructed section of Howard Avenue between WIS 794 and WIS 32 is part of the state trunk highway system and officially labeled a spur of WIS 794. Along with WIS 341, this spur is one of two unsigned state routes in the greater Milwaukee area. WIS 794 continues down South Pennsylvania Avenue, running just east of Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport south to its terminus at College Avenue.
