Traffic jams have become history at 51st Street and Mingo Road following a widening project that took nearly two years to build. The project, which was funded by the 1983 bond issue, began in the fall of 1989 and was completed in the summer of 1991. The intersection was widened to four lanes with left- and right-turn lanes on each approach. Fifty-First Street was widened to five lanes from near 94th East Avenue to the Mingo Valley Expressway. The 1985 sales tax provided funds to widen Mingo Road to five lanes between 43rd and 51st streets. Traffic flow is excellent today, a far cry from the pre-widening days when traffic congestion and no-left-turn signs were the norm. The intersection is not connected to the existing four-lane streets in Tulsa, but that should change within the next two years following the widening of 51st Street between Memorial Drive and 94th East Avenue, a project that is funded by the 1991 sales tax. A short time before this Photograph was taken, a large cluster of thunderstorms moved through Tulsa. The clouds still are quite visible in the eastern sky. Photograph taken September 1991.
