Suggestions for reducing congestion and pollution include:
1. Better affordable, frequent mass transit options and park and ride locations along the East Bench.
2. Better and safer bicycle lanes or paths to Sugar House and University of Utah on Foothill and Parley’s. I think Sunnyside is fine with bike lines and 4 lanes of traffic from 1300 East to the Zoo.
3. Wider and better sidewalks with no cracks, holes, snow, ice, or untrimmed bushes and wind fall brush.
4. Less ugliness and more landscaping, similar to section from Sunnyside to 1300 South.
5. Remove parking from Foothill Blvd. There are not that many homes and they all have garages and extra parking or are commercial. Put in a bike lane extra wide, because cars go extra fast there.
6. Widen the sidewalk on East side of Foothill to go to the golf course fence. Sign it for pedestrians and bicycle use (shared) and make it safe for people to commute by bike or foot, which would reduce cars on Foothill. The same thing could be done on the west side with a little good will from property owners. There are some times of day Foothill is too dangerous for serious commuters and it is never safe for kids.
6. Provide snow removal by the city or state for the sidewalks from Sunnyside to I-215. Currently many residents do to not clean the walks either because they don’t face Foothill or the snowplow comes along and puts all the snow back on the sidewalk after they do it so they don’t bother. This means you can’t walk or bike safely, again reducing alternative travel and putting us back in our cars especially during winter inversion. If it is the residents responsibility then enforce and fine when it is not done.
7. Ticket bikers and walkers and CARS who violate traffic laws. All the people turning right and only looking left, if ticketed, could fund our public school arts program! You can get killed everyday in front of Foothill Village.

Compared to other cities, SLC seriously lacks off-street paths that provide safe mobility for families, children, disabled, and causual bicyclists. I have suggested to incorporate Red Butte Trail to the East Bench masterplan at the open house (from Sunnyside Park to Red Butte Gardens). Now, looking around some more, I would also like to suggest adding an off-street path on the north side of Sunnyside and 800 S going from the mouth of Emigration canyon (at the Shoreline trailhead near the Zoo) all the way to 1300S, and even further west if possible. This would provide vastly improved accessibility for vulnerable users (children) from more-less the whole East Bench to the foothills, the Zoo, This is the Place park, etc, as they would not have to deal with the traffic on Sunnyside and cross Foothill on a safe (improved) crossing. Implementation should be fairly easy as most of the land immediately north of Sunnyside is an open space now, and there is only a handful of driveways and street crossings to deal with.

Naturally, similar path along Foothill would be great too but in the present street configuration it would create many conflicts (driveways, etc).

The walkable/bike-able nature of our area is very appealing. But bikes should be accommodated without reducing lanes or slowing movement on major traffic arteries (i.e. 1300 East, Sunnyside Avenue, 400 South.) The reduced lanes push traffic to interior neighborhood streets while, ironically, increasing congestion on the narrowed arteries. The result is less safety for the bikes and decreased patronage for Salt Lake City retail establishments as many area residents opt to travel south to do their shopping. Let's put the bike lanes on the quieter streets and give the automobile traffic a smooth path to our Salt Lake City businesses, Research Park, and the University of Utah.

The single improvement that would do most to beautify our environment would be to eliminate overhead utilities. The excuses given for not doing this are costs generated by the utilities themselves and have not been verified bu truly independent sources.
It haas taken generations to produce this unsightliness, it properly should take generations to eliminate them. Needed simply is a city ordinance to require new, remodeling and repair work on these facilities to follow those same rules required for University and other public work systems. If the citizen supported public agencies are required to place these facilities underground, it is the height of hubris to swamp our living areas with this unsightliness.