Charles Street, the cultural and commercial spine of Baltimore for two centuries, could return to two-way traffic under plans by Mayor Martin O'Malley to make the city's signature corridor a draw for tourists and residents once again.
The street has been one-way northbound from downtown to Charles Village since 1954, when city planners made it a priority to get people out of town in a hurry. The mayor says that might not be such a good idea anymore, and he has asked his transportation chief to study how to make all of Charles Street two-way.
"The vision is to make the cultural district and the midtown area much more of a destination, rather than a blurry sight along a major thoroughfare," O'Malley said last week. "We don't make as great a use of this asset as we could because historically we've been so intent on moving as much traffic as quickly as possible."
Traffic still must move: An estimated 15,000 to 20,000 vehicles use Charles Street daily to get out of downtown. If it became two-way, lots of those cars would have to go somewhere else - Calvert Street or the Jones Falls Expressway are most likely, and they're already packed at rush hour.
"It's good from one point of view - a pedestrian's," Hugo O. Liem Jr., a former city transportation commissioner, said of the mayor's plan. "But if you're a driver, it reduces the capacity of outbound evening traffic."
The mayor says figuring out how to solve such problems is for traffic engineers. He has asked the city's transportation director, Alfred Foxx, to report to him by fall. O'Malley stopped short of explicitly endorsing a two-way Charles Street before the study is complete but said he's certain traffic on the road must be slowed down to make it more pedestrian-friendly.
O'Malley wants to consider banning buses from Charles Street to create an atmosphere more conducive to outdoor dining and walking. Restaurant patrons complain that the buses are noisy and that clouds of black exhaust make outdoor meals a potential health hazard.
"Here you have this beautiful, historic Main Street of Baltimore and you've got these tractor-trailer buses going up and down," said Kemp Byrnes, a board member of the Historic Charles Street Association who lives and works in the 300 block of N. Charles. "We're really encouraging restaurants to open up into the street, but you can hardly hear yourself talk."
Worth another look
