EARTHQUAKE: THE ROAD TO RECOVERY : The Trick to Parking Was Mostly Luck : CSUN: With about 7,600 spaces ready for opening day and shuttles running regularly, most student drivers admit they had little to complain about.

NORTHRIDGE —  On Valentine Monday at Cal State Northridge, finding parking was about as fickle an affair as finding love.

Jason Perez arrived late in the morning but was lucky enough to nab “the best parking space I’ve ever had.” Mel Holmes tried getting to school early but wound up searching for half an hour.

But patience or the luck of the draw paid off for most, and neighboring streets and designated parking areas witnessed none of the pandemonium that broke out on the campus itself on the first day of class after last month’s devastating earthquake.

“I expected utter chaos, but I was surprised,” said Lori Lass, 30, an accounting student from Woodland Hills. “Things were running pretty smooth.”

Fellow senior Cindy Levin, 22, agreed. “So you drive around for an extra five minutes and find a space when someone’s pulling out. It’s no different (from before). People are just being babies,” she said with scorn for carping freshmen.

CSUN officials had braced themselves for mass parking confusion and huge tie-ups after the collapse of a 2,500-space structure--the university’s largest--in last month’s temblor. Work crews scrambled to pave new lots in recent days, and about 7,600 spaces were ready for opening day, compared to 9,200 before the quake.

But traffic turned out to be a lesser headache Monday, despite the catch-as-catch-can flavor of the parking hunt during prime morning class hours. Although a few streets were busier than usual, cars flowed smoothly, motorists behaved civilly and free shuttles set up by the university hummed their way to and from the campus and outlying parking lots.

“It was like the Disneyworld monorail,” said Helen Rupp of Westchester, after hopping off a shuttle back to her car in the university’s north parking lot. “It’s fantastic.”

At the abandoned Prairie Street School, a former elementary school on the main CSUN campus, university officials unlocked the gates early in the morning to provide 500 previously unused parking spaces. Attendants said the lot reached capacity by 9 a.m.--as did lots on the west side of campus--but the equilibrium was dynamic: Cars left throughout the morning, quickly replaced by others just arriving.

Jason Perez was one of the fortunate. Although he pulled up at 10 a.m., a car had just exited, and the attendant waved him in.

“I have problems parking every year. So I figured, what the hell, it can’t be any worse than it was before,” said Perez, 23, a history major from Orange County.

Perez has never put out the money for a campus parking permit and grew used to leaving his car on distant streets. “This is actually the best parking space I’ve ever had,” he said with a grin.

By arriving at CSUN later than most, he also missed the early-morning traffic on Nordhoff Street, which bogged down further with an accident at Gloria Avenue just west of the San Diego Freeway about 8 a.m.

Others, like Mel Holmes of Inglewood, weren’t so lucky.

Holmes, 19, sat through the congestion for several minutes, then cut over to side streets to get to campus. But after that came the half-hour ordeal of finding a parking space, with the slow, shark-like prowl ordinarily reserved for shopping mall lots at Christmastime.

Finally Holmes hit pay dirt--but so did the city, which had a meter set up where she left her car. So the biology student sacrificed 25 cents for an hour’s grace period.

“That’s all I had. But I have classes all day, so I can’t worry about it now,” she said. “Hopefully I won’t get a ticket.”

To deal with the influx of thousands of students for the new semester, city officials have eased parking restrictions on 25 neighboring streets. On sections of Etiwanda Avenue and Superior Street, for example, red “No Parking Anytime” signs have bowed to green tags advertising temporary parking.

The change does not go over well with some residents, a few of whom have fought for years to have their streets cleared of cars during the morning, if not all day.

“Students use my circular driveway to turn around in. The car alarms drive me crazy. There’s one that’s gone off four times already today,” said Gail Schepler, 33, as she took her two young children on a morning walk along Etiwanda.

“I understand the students have to have somewhere to park . . . (but) it’s annoying,” she said.

“CSUN’s problem is not mine,” added Susan Lieberman, whose Superior Street driveway was hemmed on either side by a stretch of cars. “I don’t think CSUN cares about the community.”

Many students parked on side streets faced walks of up to a mile to the center of campus. Frank Moriarty of Simi Valley thought ahead--and brought along the $200 pair of black in-line skates he purchased three months ago.

After his 10 o’clock class, he strapped on the skates and glided back to his waiting Honda Accord. “They have a shuttle that’ll take you, but I figure I can skate faster than that,” Moriarty, 19, said.

Others decided to ride municipal buses or their own bicycles to campus, while a few car-pooled.

Still, the shuttles did a brisk business with those who parked at the north end of campus along the old Devonshire Downs, where workers created 1,500 new spaces.

“It’s not like a yellow bus, so it’s cool,” said Puneh Iranpou, 20, a senior majoring in biology. “When they said shuttle, I thought, ‘Back to high school.’

“Actually I’m really impressed. In a way it’s really easier, because you don’t have to find a place to park” closer to campus, she said.