1940s Panama Canal Upgrade

Okay, I was just reading about the Panama Canal expansion project, and was surprised to find out that there had been an expansion started in the 1940s, but that it had been cancelled due to the war and never restarted afterwards. Digging around for specifics, wikipedia gives the then planned new lock sizes as 1200 ft long (compared to 1050 ft for the old locks), 140 ft wide (compared to 110 ft) and 45 ft deep (compared to 41.2 ft). These sizes were figured enough to accommodate the planned Montana class battleships, but since they never eventuated, and given there were more essential projects beckoning by the time work was stopped in 1942, the new locks never actually got completed.

So, what would it take to get construction of those new locks either continued past 1942 or restarted after the war?
 

Hoist40

Banned
After the war it would probably need a bigger naval threat or a much smaller US Navy. In 1945 the US Pacific and Atlantic Fleets were far larger then any possible threat so there was little need for transferring large aircraft carriers back and forth.

Prior to 1941 the US only had one main fleet and so the Panama Canal was vital to transfer that fleet back and forth as needed but in 1945 the US had more ships on each coast then they knew what to do with.
 
Well the obvious answer I can think of is for the US Navy to start building their large aircraft carriers earlier since IIRC all of them post Midway-class have been too large to use the canal. Perhaps try and find a way so that initially after WW2 the government doesn't decide to rely almost solely on nuclear weapons delivered by the Air Force, that might mean the Navy gets their planned for United States-class carriers or started earlier on the Forrestal-class. If the expansion has already been started and they're not sure on how many of the new large carriers they're going to be able to get, the Air Force with be enthusiastically fighting their own corner, then the capability to rapidly move them between oceans would be rather appealing I'd think.
 
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