9412901 MARK The January 1994 earthquake in Los Angeles destroyed parts of four major freeways. This event presents a unique opportunity to explore the impacts of such disruptions on both motorists who used those freeways and on neighborhoods that receive the displaced motorists. Due to modified commuting patterns, members of different ethnic and socioeconomic groups are necessarily interacting in ways that they did not interact before. White middle and upper income commuters are now travelling surface streets in predominantly lower income and ethnically African American and Hispanic neighborhoods. Preliminary evidence suggests that significant interactions between commuters and residents of these neighborhoods are occurring and that these interactions are changing in intensity over time, suggesting that contact is stimulating improved relations bewteen these groups. This study will be based on three forms of data collection. Commuters will be identified via license plate numbers and sent a sequence of mailed questionnaires. Neighborhood residents and businesses will be interviewed in person. Finally, systemmatic observations of the interactions along major arterials will be undertaken in order to identify the nature of those interactions and to corroborate information collected by interviews and surveys. Documenting the nature of changes in attitudes and behaviors between these different social groups will have broad implications for understanding basic attitudes and attitude changes brought about by new levels of interaction in a racially and economically polarized, and geographically segregated, urban society. The research will further provide insight into the impact of disasters on travel behavior of residents which should prove useful in planning for such events. As a doctoral dissertation research award, this project will also provide support to enable a promising student to establish a stong independent research career. ***
