Panama Canal routes, locks, and equal toll access

The French and American Panama Canal projects used broadly the same route, with finance and the unfinished lock system among the issues separating the attempts. Earlier completion in the French-ownership counterfactual therefore need not imply an entirely different route. British objections to toll exemptions for American coast-to-coast traffic introduce a separate question of commercial access. Equal treatment mattered because an exemption for one country's ships changed the terms for everyone else. In the scenario, French tolls charged to all users would avoid that particular distinction.