This probably won’t hold much interest for the non-Maryland set — there, you’ve been warned.

As long as anyone can remember, Charles Street has been the central axis of Baltimore. At one point, the numbering system radiated from the intersection of North (now Guilford), South and Baltimore streets, but someone finally realized that since Charles was really the foremost north-south axis, it would make a better focus for the numbers.

Charles also has the distinction of being probably the most schizophrenic street in the United States. South Charles reaches down past the waterfront into workaday South Baltimore, where it hosts a pleasant little business district and small, mostly-well-kept rowhouses.

Oh, but North Charles street! Always the home of fashionable boutiques and imposing houses, it runs through Washington Place and up across the Jones Falls to the toniest residential sections. It also looks like a street designed by Dr. Caligari.

The lower reaches of Charles Street are perhaps ridiculously wide. Baltimore had urban renewal thrust upon it accidentally in 1904, when the entire central business district burned. The city was thus able to rid itself of the embarrassing old rabbit-warren of tangled and narrow streets. This section of Charles now sports the Ionic perfection of the old Bank of Baltimore building and the massive B&O Railroad headquarters. Unfortunately, a few similar Beaux-Arts masterpieces were wiped out in a burst of urban renewal — anticipated this time — in the 1960s.

Once out of the old “fire district,” Charles Street (like all good Marylanders) promptly reverts to its old ways and narrows back down, basically only one lane with parking along both sides. This is the sort of Baltimore vista that reminded Trollope of Merrie England. Thankfully, the street widens out again before anyone gets claustrophobia, right around the Archbishop’s residence.

Charles disappears entirely for two blocks, graciously allowing its path to be usurped by beautiful Washington Place. Then it picks right back up where it left off and continues north. Once past the weirdly angled Pennsylvania Station (which was built to be parallel to the tracks, not the street) the street’s gentility fades badly, but fortunately a few dedicated souls seem to be trying to reclaim its glories.

In the Victorian age, this section was all new. They called it “Charles Street Avenue” because, well, Charles itself was downtown; this was merely the avenue that got you to Charles eventually. This was a pretty common habit; Richmond has similar concoctions. Charles Street Avenue, as befits what was once a shady country lane, is much wider than Charles is downtown.

Once Charles crosses 29th, though, all hell breaks loose and takes the form of pavement. This section is what was once called “Charles Street Avenue Boulevard”, an appellation that takes redundancy to an extreme but, as Letitia Stockett wrote, had the advantage of being very precise. This is also the section of Charles that has given citizens, city fathers, confused tourists and traffic experts more headaches over the years than all other stretches of pavement in the city combined (with Frederick and Hagerstown streets thrown in for good measure).

The problem is that the section became fashionable in the 1890s and so drastic measures were taken. We must remember that in the 1890s nothing could be fashionable without a lot of extra frippery. A battle royal ensued between the varied interests of the Wyman family, who owned the land to the west of the street and didn’t want it developed, the Johns Hopkins University, which was trying to (and did) score most of the Wyman land, and the people developing the east side of the street. The Olmsted firm was called in to landscape, and part of the Wyman land was turned into a park, which would be attractive if it weren’t in a deep valley. It’s a park in a hole. Olmsted recommended widening the road and making it a boulevard — which is almost what happened. The city wasn’t satisfied with a normal boulevard, and decided to make a triple boulevard — a wide central roadway flanked by medians and two smaller roadways on either side. Very pretty, but very weird. It’s been causing traffic nightmares since the days when navy-blue barouches plied the streets, and the current proliferation of city buses, Oldsmobiles and Hopkins students aren’t helping. The easternmost roadway is too narrow and is basically a parking lot now. The westernmost is a southbound speedway, and the central road is given to northbound traffic, except for one lane that is southbound only during rush hour. Naturally, all of this means that even people who have lived in that neighborhood for forty years can’t figure out what’s going on.

Once again, the city wants to do something about it. Too many people have gotten offed in “the death lane” (that weird one that changes direction) and too many people trying to find the art museum have ended up plunging down the hill into the park out of sheer traffic despair. Several planning meetings and hearings have ensued. Nobody is happy. The city doesn’t want to spend the estimated $15 million to rip out the old triple boulevard, but traffic managers don’t see any other way. Preservationists are in both camps — some want the triple boulevard to stay because it’s always been there, others say it must go because it wasn’t Olmsted’s original plan. Commuters want the use of the road; residents are tired of commuters roaring up and down the street.

The best solution would be, simply, to do away with traffic in the two smaller roadways and turn the main roadway into a two-way road all the time. It would allow use of the road while slowing traffic to a manageable speed, provide more parklike space, preserve the by-now-historic triple boulevard, and alleviate the insanity of the current traffic flow plan.

Best of all, this solution could be reached for the price of a few gallons of yellow road paint.