Valleywide : USC Report Points Up Pluses of Retrofitting

Road and highway damage caused by the 1994 Northridge earthquake cost businesses as much as $2 billion, a report released by the University of Southern California Thursday concluded.

USC urban planners Peter Gordon and Harry Richardson estimated that transportation breakdowns were responsible for up to a third of all quake-related business losses.

In an earlier study released last June, Gordon and Richardson placed the total business losses at $6 billion.

On Thursday they reported finding that $1.5 billion to $2 billion of that loss could be attributed to the inability of employees and customers to get through and by the interruption of shipments, they said.

Richardson said the study points out a hidden benefit to the cost of seismically retrofitting roads and bridges.

“As a general principal, we thought the business interruption impact associated with a transportation problem justified retrofitting,” Richardson said. “It seemed to us to be sound public policy.”

The findings were based on phone surveys of 389 businesses in areas most severely damaged by the quake, including San Fernando, Glendale, Los Angeles and Santa Monica. The survey responses were extrapolated to the region comprising Los Angeles, Ventura, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Another study also released by the university Thursday concluded that the dramatic growth of Metrolink ridership immediately following the earthquake was short-lived. USC urban and regional planning professor Genevieve Giuliano said she found that commuters quickly changed driving routes, travel schedules and destinations rather than switch to public transit or ride-sharing.

Both studies were underwritten by the U.S. Department of Transportation and will be presented at a conference next week exploring the lessons learned after the Northridge and Loma Prieta quakes.