Earthquake: The Road to Recovery : Santa Clarita Finds Opportunity in Disaster : Aftermath: For all the hardship, the quake has also increased city’s rail service and added a redevelopment agency.

In every cloud or quake, there is a silver lining.

The blow the Northridge earthquake delivered to north Los Angeles County was devastating: almost $300 million in damages to the Santa Clarita Valley, the closure of two crucial freeways, and widespread water, power and gas outages.

But even as they scrambled to restore vital services, city leaders promised to seize the moment, to find opportunities in the rubble and hope in the ruins.

“All of a sudden, projects that were good ideas that had to be put on the back burner for lack of funds are now great ideas that can’t wait,” said Mike Haviland, Santa Clarita’s manager of economic development. “There’s a whole new ballgame here.”

That ballgame included adding commuter train stops in Santa Clarita and the Antelope Valley--something transportation officials had said they could not afford to do for another seven to 10 years.

In the two weeks after the quake, four new Metrolink stations were opened--three in the Antelope Valley and one in Santa Clarita. A second Santa Clarita station opened Monday. The daily ridership on the Santa Clarita line soared to more than 20,000 during its second week of expanded operation. Although it has fallen to about half that, federal and state disaster agencies are expected to pick up much of the $27.2-million tab for the expansion.

For 6-year-old Santa Clarita, launching a local Redevelopment Agency was a major step. Despite years of preparation, the city had never fully gotten the program off the ground. Right after the quake struck, talk turned to action. Using emergency powers, the City Council activated the agency Tuesday.

“We’ve been wanting to get this started for years,” said Lynn Harris, deputy city manager for community development. “The earthquake handed it to us in 45 seconds.”

Then there were the telecommuting centers that everyone smiled fondly about, but few were interested in actually using. These offices-away-from-the-office suddenly became realistic options for commuters facing crowded trains and jammed highways.

In the two weeks after the quake, two telecommuting centers in the Santa Clarita Valley had leased all their available space, and a third center in the Antelope Valley was planning to expand to meet increasing demand.

All of which underscores that the Northridge quake moved more than the earth; it also shook local governments into action.

In the Antelope Valley, which developed at a blazing pace in the 1980s, then stalled in the recession, builders and landlords hope the earthquake will spark a new home-buying and office-leasing spree. They are banking on the new Metrolink line, federal aid programs and relatively low prices to lure quake victims to an area that suffered no physical damage.

But first, local business groups say they must dispel the widespread notion that north Los Angeles County is now impossible to reach. Despite the new rail service and freeway detours, many people cannot forget one of the quake’s most vivid images: the broken freeway bridges at the southern edge of Santa Clarita.

“I think it was kind of the poster child of the earthquake,” said Scott Richter, president of the Antelope Valley division of Centex Homes. “It’s in a lot of people’s minds.”

Still, that image was not a problem for Michael R. Campos, a commercial real estate agent in Palmdale who recently rented local office space to several small business owners from the San Fernando Valley. He expects others to follow, as surplus space disappears and prices rise in the quake-damaged areas to the south.

“This could be a shot in the arm for this valley,” Campos said.

In the Santa Clarita Valley, city officials hope to get an economic boost from their new redevelopment agency.

Before the quake, attempts to establish such an agency stalled because of time and cost constraints, city officials said. “This emergency has allowed us to short-circuit the bureaucratic B. S. and get this project up and running,” said Don Duckworth, a consultant hired to help set up the agency.

Using its emergency powers, the City Council was able to activate the agency without identifying blighted areas or going through the standard--and potentially arduous--environmental review process, Duckworth said.

The agency will receive a share of increased property taxes in the renewal area. The money can be used to repair roads, revitalize commercial areas and build senior citizens housing.

Some hope the quake has handed the city a golden opportunity to use disaster aid to relieve traffic jams on local streets--a common complaint even before the earth shook.

Now is the time for the city to tackle its long-standing transportation problems, said Marlee Lauffer, a past president of the Santa Clarita Chamber of Commerce.

Specifically, she called on the City Council to build a new east-west transportation corridor, which would include the widening and extension of some existing streets and construction of some new roads. She also urged the city to complete the construction of a bridge linking White’s Canyon Road and the Antelope Valley Freeway, and to widen San Fernando Road south of Lyons Avenue.

“The transportation system in the valley has always needed to be upgraded--this disaster has just really pointed that out,” said Lauffer, who also is a spokeswoman for the city’s largest developer, the Newhall Land & Farming Co. “I can’t speak to how they do it, but the chamber is very anxious to see that it gets done.”

Phil Sneiderman is a Times staff writer, Scott Glover is a special correspondent.