By Dan Walters, Sacramento Bee

Driving north from Bakersfield on Highway 99, a motorist soon encounters an offramp onto Highway 65, which runs up the east side of the Central Valley – but not very far.

Dan Walters

The pavement ends about 70 miles north of Bakersfield, near the farming town of Exeter.

However, 200-plus miles farther to the north, another 35-mile stretch of Highway 65 connects Marysville, north of Sacramento, with Roseville through a region that has seen explosive residential, commercial and industrial growth in the last few decades.

These two widely disconnected pieces of Highway 65 hint at what was once seen as a major north-south route – a twin, so to speak, of Interstate 5, which carries traffic along the Central Valley’s west side.

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