Toll closes at Lake of the Ozarks community bridge

LAKE OF THE OZARKS, Mo. – Lake of the Ozarks residents are excited about a new development to their commute- the closing of the toll at the community bridge.

“I actually woke up and I was like, Yay, the toll’s gone today. I actually said that,” said Lake of the Ozarks resident Kaitlin Lumb.

She said she always avoided the bridge on her way to work, even at the cost of lengthening her commute.

“I know it’s 45 minutes either way to drive around, but still, the fact that it was even a toll, I just didn’t want to go through the pain of having cash,” Lumb said.

Although some residents are rejoicing, others are saddened by the toll’s closing due to losing their jobs as toll booth operators.

“I’ve got about had about 18 employees here and all of those people and the majority of might say, I’ll probably retire, but the rest of them, there’ll be a few of them out there looking for jobs,” said Bridge Operations Manager Eric Faes.

According to Faes, since the toll bridge’s opening in 1998, at least 36 million vehicles have traveled over it. Due to COVID-19, Faes says, the toll was able to close ahead of the scheduled 2026 date.

“With the extra traffic from COVID and the surplus that we had each year, the board of directors was able to make surplus payments and put that towards the original debt, which actually helped us pay it off earlier,” Faes said.

Faes and Lumb agree that the bridge will likely get much busier now that the toll is closed.

“There’s like a line dancing place that just opened out there and I’m all about that, so I’m excited to get my friends to go. Now that it’s like not inconvenient to drive around or have cash always available,” said Lumb.

Faes added that the actual toll booth likely will be removed after the end of the summer, at which point MoDOT will realign the road, keeping it two lanes.

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