Bottlenecks on transportation can limit the growth and productivity of an entire region. The lock system at the Kentucky Dam has such a bottleneck.
The navigational lock system for the dam, built during the New Deal civil construction boom of the later 1930s and early ’40s, accommodates 600-foot barges. Seventy years ago, that served the region’s transportation needs just fine. In 2018, though, it’s just not enough.