Question: Which did construction start on first, the Delaware and Raritan Canal or the Pennsylvania Canal?
Context: The Delaware and Raritan Canal (D&R Canal) is a canal in central New Jersey, United States, built in the 1830s, that served to connect the Delaware River to the Raritan River.  It was intended as an efficient and reliable means of transportation of freight between Philadelphia and New York City, especially coal from the anthracite fields in eastern Pennsylvania.  Before the advent of the railroads, the canal allowed shippers to cut many miles off the route from the Pennsylvania coal fields, down the Delaware, around Cape May, and up along the (occasionally treacherous) Atlantic Ocean coast to New York City. The Delaware Division of the Pennsylvania Canal, more commonly called the Delaware Canal, runs for 60 mi parallel to the right bank of the Delaware River from the entry locks near the mouth of the Lehigh River and terminal end of the Lehigh Canal at Easton south to Bristol.  At Easton, which today is the home of The National Canal Museum, the Delaware Canal also connected with the Morris Canal built to carry anthracite coal to energy starved New Jersey industries.  Later, with a crossing-lock constructed at New Hope, the New Hope 'outlet lock' (1847) connected by Cable Ferry to a feeder navigation/canal at Bull's Island along the opposite shore from Lumberville, which ran over 22 mi south along the left bank through Trenton to Bordentown, the west end of the Delaware and Raritan Canal (1834) to New York City via New Brunswick.  as part of the solution to the United States' first energy crisis.  The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania built the Delaware canal to feed anthracite stone coal to energy-hungry Philadelphia as part of its transportation infrastructure building plan known as the Main Line of Public Works—a legislative initiative creating a collection of self-reinforcing internal improvements to commercial transportation capabilities. Wilburtha is a section of Ewing Township in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States.  Located where Wilburtha Road crosses the Delaware and Raritan Canal, it is one of the oldest settlements in Ewing Township and developed due to the construction of the canal in the early 19th century.  The community was known as Greensburg before adopting its current name in 1883.  The Yardley–Wilburtha Bridge once connected Wilburtha to Yardley, Pennsylvania on the other side of the Delaware River.  Today, Wilburtha is primarily a residential neighborhood consisting of detached, single-family homes, the majority of which were built in the 1950s through the early 1980s. Pennsylvania Canal "(or sometimes Pennsylvania Canal system)" refers generally to a complex system of transportation infrastructure improvements including canals, dams, locks, tow paths, aqueducts, and viaducts.  The Canal and Works were constructed and assembled over several decades beginning in 1824, the year of the first enabling act and budget items.  It should be understood the "first use of any railway" in North America was the year 1826, so the newspapers and the Pennsylvania Assembly of 1824 applied the term then to the proposed Right of ways mainly for the canals of the Main Line of Public Works to be built across the southern part of Pennsylvania.  Enacted before Railroads gestated during their infancy, the focus of the act was to create through building a canal system, the capability to ship heavy or bulk goods and connect Philadelphia to Pittsburgh—and "more importantly"—and "beyond" to the "new growth markets" in the developing territories reached by the Ohio River now called the midwest.  Later, when updated in 1837 to reflect the experience of twelve years of toddler-railways, the term was also applied to railroads and new canals to be added to the state transportation system.  As a crowning achievement, the Main Line of Public Works and the Pennsylvania Canal system topped 2100 ft in elevation by erecting the Allegheny Portage Railroad, which used a system of five inclines and five planes on each side of the Eastern Continental Divide at Cresson Pass in Cambria County to actually haul wheeled flat cars, which had halved canal boats placed on them, up and over the Allegheny Front and connect Pittsburgh to the Susquehanna.  When finished in 1834 the trip from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh could be made in 3–5 days, weather conditions depending. Landing Lane Bridge is part of County Route 609 and spans the Raritan River and the Delaware and Raritan Canal in New Jersey.  The two lane bridge connects Piscataway to the north with New Brunswick and Franklin Township to the south.  The approaching roadways on both sides are known as "Landing Lane."  The Delaware and Raritan Canal State Park and towpath is accessible from the bridge. The Susquehanna Canal of the Pennsylvania Canal System was funded and authorized as part of the 1826 Main Line of Public Works enabling act, and would later become the Susquehanna Division of the Pennsylvania Canal under the Pennsylvania Canal Commission.  Constructed early on in America's brief canal age, it formed an integral segment of the water focused transportation system which cut Philadelphia-Pittsburgh (pre-railroad) travel time from nearly a month to just four days.  One of the system's navigations, the Susquehanna Canal/division created a mule-towed navigable channel 41 mi along the west bank of the main stem of the Susquehanna River between a lock terminus near the mouth of the Juniata Tributary River and the canal basin at Northumberland.  Meeting the West Branch Canal and the North Branch Canal at Northumberland, it formed a link between the public and private canals upriver and the main east–west Pennsylvania Canal route known as the Main Line of Public Works which was devised to connect Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, southern New York, northern Pennsylvania and Lake Erie using most of the far reaches of the Susquehanna's tributaries. Bristol is a borough in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, 23 mi northeast of Center City Philadelphia, opposite Burlington, New Jersey on the Delaware River.  Bristol was first incorporated in 1720 but historically, after 1834 became very important to the development of the American Industrial Revolution as the terminus city of the Delaware Canal providing greater Philadelphia with the days High Tech Anthracite fuels from the Lehigh Canal via Easton.  The canal and a short trip on the Delaware also gave the town access to the mineral resources available in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York via each of the Morris Canal, the Delaware and Hudson Canal, and the Delaware and Raritan Canal, and connected the community to those markets and trade from New York City.  All these factors spurred development of Bristol and nearby towns, explaining in part the industries which developed in the region. Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad (P&CR) (1834) was one of the earliest commercial railroads in the United States, running 82 mi from Philadelphia to Columbia, Pennsylvania, it was built by the Pennsylvania Canal Commission in lieu of a canal from Columbia to Philadelphia; in 1857 it became part of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and its trackage lives on today operated by Norfolk-Southern.  The Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad's western terminus was located near the former ferry site known as Wright's Ferry, in the town once of that name, but now Columbia in Lancaster County.  There the P&CR met with the Pennsylvania Canal—navigations and improvements on the Susquehanna River east bank approximately 30 mi south of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.  Most of its right-of-way was obtained by the actions of the Pennsylvania Canal Commission which operated the railroad under the various enabling acts of the Pennsylvania legislature known as the Main Line of Public Works in support of a far sighted plan to link the whole state by canals.  With an engineering study reporting back a finding that obtaining sufficient waters to flood the intended 80+ mile canal from Philadelphia to Columbia, the Canal Commission and legislature authorized the railway on the right of way intended for the canal. The Six Mile Run Reservoir Site, part of the Delaware and Raritan Canal State Park, is located in Franklin Township, Somerset County, New Jersey, United States.  It is adjacent to the Delaware and Raritan Canal.  It covers 3037 acre .  The reservoir plan was to flood the Six Mile Run watershed.  The Six Mile Run is a tributary of the Millstone River that, with its tributaries (Cross Brook, Middlebush Brook, Nine Mile Run and Steep Hill Brook and several other unnamed ones), drains a large area in central Franklin Township, Somerset County, New Jersey and western portions of North Brunswick and South Brunswick Townships in Middlesex County, New Jersey.  It derives its name, along with other streams (Mile Run, Three Mile Run, Nine Mile Run, and Ten Mile Run), from the distance early surveyors estimated it was from the point where the historic King's Highway (now Rt. 27) left the Raritan River at New Brunswick to the point the roadway crossed the stream.  The estimates were not very accurate but the stream names have remained in use ever since. Delaware and Raritan Canal State Park is a New Jersey state park along the Delaware and Raritan Canal.
Answer: Pennsylvania Canal