Baltimore transportation officials are working to redesign North Charles Street in a way that will please everybody with an interest in the future of the city's central north-south artery.

But consensus has been elusive.

For years, debate has flourished on how to make traffic on Charles Street - which can be confusing and even treacherous - safe for the thousands of pedestrians who cross it around the Johns Hopkins University campus and Charles Village.

Representatives of the interested parties - including the university, the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Charles Village Civic Association - will get a final opportunity to confer with city officials at a meeting Jan. 7 at City Hall.

At stake is a $10 million streetscape project - from 25th Street to University Parkway - that the city would like to see go forward next year. The city will pay for 20 percent of the project, and federal funds will cover the rest.

"We'd like to walk out of that meeting with a concept universally accepted," said Frank Murphy, the city's chief of traffic engineering. "The problem is we have to put our global hats on - meet the needs of the city as a whole, not just the immediate area."

That indicates the reason for the impasse. In general, those who live and study in the area would rather have traffic proceed at a more stately pace than would traffic experts, who regard Charles Street as a main route into and out of downtown.

Dennis O'Shea, a Hopkins spokesman, praised the city process as "fair-minded." He said two principal issues for the university are calming traffic and improving safety for pedestrians.

Traffic engineers and area residents said the street's notorious "death lane" - which heads downtown against the prevailing lanes of northbound traffic - is a major impetus for the discussion because it has been the site of numerous accidents and, recently, a jogger's death.

Another goal for Hopkins and the adjacent BMA is to create better access and integration between the institutions and Charles Village.

"The BMA's position has been that this exercise should not be simply a traffic engineering plan, but a comprehensive community plan," said Alfred W. Barry III, a consultant representing the museum. "We think there's a tremendous opportunity to connect the BMA with Hopkins and the Charles Village community."

A key connection for the planners is a proposed university bookstore at 33rd and Charles streets that is bound to draw area residents and students.

Beth Bullamore, president of the Charles Village Civic Association, said community residents feel that aesthetics and livability are paramount for a design that is supposed to last 20 years.

"The community vision is that this should be one of the most gorgeous places in the city," Bullamore said. "This could be a promenade, a destination, a major artery that doesn't have to be moving cars so fast. And we need easier access to the BMA. People get lost all the time."

Officials say the project may include changes to the placement of the median, to the landscaping and to the infrastructure under the road.