I think 30 or so years from now California could be a very different place if the state doesn't start waking up to some dysfunctional realities that could screw its real estate industry and overall economy for a really long time. Young, American-born residents are leaving the state in droves due to the insane living costs. Combine that with America's current anti-immigrant, borderline nationalist vibe. That sours potential foreign buyers from wanting to snap up over-priced real estate properties along the coast when the American owners are getting really old and wanting to cash out. There's going to be a lot of people who paid huge for their homes and possibly very few people wanting to buy. Lots of other big urban markets around the US are headed in this direction.
Anyway, the elites in California just need to enjoy that bubble economy while it lasts.
30 years from now CA-99 will be a fully Interstate-class facility, whether it carries an Interstate designation or not. It probably won't. At the same time the town fathers along or near the coast who blocked various US-101 upgrades in the past could be crying out for them in earnest as a means of trying to spur local economic development.
Ironically almost none of those urban housing issues are present along the corridor of 99. 99 is mostly in agricultural centric area, the cost of living and mode of life is almost completely opposite to the big cities. Home prices around places like Fresno and Bakersfield are very reasonable compared to the rest of the state. Right now 99 is on track to be fully modernized sooner rather than later. If the project south of 198 can get funded again that will be a huge boost the viability of the Golden State Freeway through Tulare County.
The issue with the section of CA 99 in Tulare County (essentially from the north end of Delano to the Kings River) are the absolutely
huge number of substandard (read
low -- 15'6" and under) overcrossings. Even the widening project from Goshen up to the Kings River didn't tackle the low overpasses; they just widened the carriageways beneath them. Just traveling on 99 in the south part of the county through the small towns of Tipton, Earlimart, and Pixley is a blast from the past -- most of the structures date from 1963 or earlier, when even Interstate standards allowed clearances less than 15 feet. Many of these overpasses have gashes or chunks broken off by overheight trucks passing under them -- trailers can and do "bounce" anywhere up to a couple of feet over their stated height, particularly on aging jointed concrete pavement. The latter issue (old/uneven pavement) has seen quite a few "spot" repair projects including asphalt "capping" -- but with breaks under the bridges so as not to exacerbate the clearance problems. Of course there are solutions -- raising the bridges, scooping out/lowering the pavement underneath them, or simply reconstructing the overcrossing to present standards. The latter is cited in the CA 99 "master plan" as Caltrans' preferred methodology -- although like with most recent plans of this type, it doesn't include dedicated funds to accomplish this; it's dependent upon either multi-year STIP programmed outlays or the use of maintenance funds to effect sporadic fixes.
But an additional issue with the Tulare County 99 segment is that it features the lowest overall traffic volume of the entire corridor; considerably lower than from the Fresno area north, which functions as an agricultural-product "conveyor belt" to the food processors in the Bay Area and Stockton-Sacramento. That section has gotten considerably more attention re upgrades/expansion than the portion to the south -- most probably because it featured the last expressway segments of the whole Valley corridor -- the section south of Fresno was full freeway by the late '60's -- albeit not to current standards -- so it was viewed as a
fait accompli by both DOH/Caltrans and the general driving public. It wasn't until the massive traffic increases on the corridor by the '80's corresponding to the rapid growth of Bakersfield, Fresno, and the Modesto area coupled with increased regional agricultural output that pressure to make the corridor more efficient was felt. But the priority was to eliminate the grade crossings rampant north of Fresno; the already-completed freeway south of CA 198 was relegated to secondary consideration. And as of 2017, the entire corridor -- Wheeler Ridge to Sacramento --
is full freeway, regardless of age or standards.
And Max is completely correct -- if the housing prices along 99 lag behind the coastal regions, that will prompt even further development up and down the corridor -- little towns like Ripon and Salida are becoming favored exurban developmental areas as overflow from Manteca and Lathrop, themselves overflow from Tracy. CA "sprawl" tends to follow perceived property bargains, even if many of those come with outsized costs in terms of commute time and money. So, to date, most of the "action" involved in fulfilling the CA 99 "master plan" has been directed to the north part of the corridor due to the aggregate pressure emanating from the increased regional housing supply. For better or worse, the southern portion has received, in relative terms, the funding "scraps" as a result.