At one point, the highway extended west to the Salt Lake City International Airport (well after US-40A was truncated), but this connection was lost in 2007 when SR-186 was aligned to cover all of former SR-184, which was decommissioned that same year.

The route heads up Victory Road as a two-lane undivided highway, forming the northern limit of urban development in the Marmalade District.

As the road heads southeast, it reaches the top of Salt Lake's Capitol Hill, a foothill of Ensign Peak, where residential developments begin to appear on the north side.

The route turns south onto Columbus Street and runs along the west side of the Utah State Capitol grounds.

A short distance east, at the foot of the front steps of the Capitol building, the route again turns south onto State Street and descends to downtown.

Widening to three lanes in each direction at North Temple, SR-186 continues on State Street for a total of seven blocks before turning east on 400 South next to Washington Square.

After the light rail tracks leave the median with a gated grade crossing of the westbound lanes, the route passes the University of Utah's Rice-Eccles Stadium, various University of Utah support buildings in the southern reaches of the campus, the Veteran's Administration Hospital, and a small military area (the remnants of Fort Douglas) before turning southeast and becoming Foothill Drive (also known as Foothill Boulevard).

Although SR-186 was a hidden legislative designation along the path of US-40A, the portion of 400 South between 300 West (where US-40 ran) and Redwood Road (SR-68) was solely SR-186 by 1941, and was signed as such.

[11] Since it was along the planned alignment for I-80, it became SR-2 (only a legislative designation that was never signed) in 1962, but the portion east of an interchange near the Salt Lake City International Airport was due to be bypassed by the Interstate, and so in 1966 that piece became State Route 267.

[12] State Route 176 was built in 1933 with federal aid and numbered in 1935, forming an alternate to US-89/91 through downtown Salt Lake City.

SR-184 remained a separate route until 2007, when North Temple west of State Street was given to Salt Lake City for the Airport extension of the TRAX Green Line.