Temperatures were below freezing on the morning of Saturday Feb. 2 as Jay Shuffield, a member of local advocacy group Friends of the Oval, showed a reporter around the Williamsbridge Oval Park, Norwood’s most heavily-used open space.

Shuffield was pointing out the various safety concerns that he and other local residents have, citing the lack of signage at the intersection of Holt Place and Reservoir Oval East as a major problem. Then a collision almost happened, right in front of their eyes.

Shuffield, an urban planner by training, explained how the speed bump on Reservoir Oval near Wayne Avenue actually causes most drivers to speed up towards the approaching park entrance, putting pedestrians in danger. Inadequate lighting and sightline obstruction by street parking are also major grievances mentioned by Shuffield and his fellow FOTO members.

But the largest complaint of all, Shuffield and others said, has been the Department of Transportation’s continued tendency to do nothing.

“They’re supposed to be the professionals and the experts, and all they’ve done so far is say, ‘no,’” Shuffield said. “And they’re slow even to do that.”

Over the course of the last few months, outcry in response to the lack of cooperation by the DOT has reached new heights, as local residents and elected officials alike are growing impatient.

Shuffield said the DOT has continued to “deviate from federal guidelines” during this process, drawing up questionable measurements and ignoring protocol.

The DOT claims that crosswalks and stop signs cannot be installed because their tests concluded that pedestrian and auto traffic was too low to receive federal warrants.

However, Shuffield pointed out that these studies the DOT cites are unreliable because they were performed on Nov.10 and 11, when the Oval was closed due to damage from Hurricane Sandy and traffic of any kind was virtually nonexistent. At a recent community “workshop,” the DOT agreed to do more studies.

As the process to increase safety is now more than halfway through its third year, there may finally be reason for cautious optimism thanks to the involvement of community members and Assemblymen Jeffrey Dinowitz and Mark Gjonaj.

Both assemblymen are eager to rally the community in support of their plan to convert the area confined within the border of East Gun Hill Road, Webster Avenue, East 204th St. and Bainbridge Avenue into a Slow Zone.

According to the DOT’s website, Slow Zones reduce speed to 20 miles per hour in mostly residential areas with strong boundaries. The area within this space meets all the necessary criteria, which is why the assemblymen are working to get support from local residents and business owners by March, when the Slow Zone application can be filed by the community board — in this case, Community Board 7.

While Shuffield is skeptical about how helpful the DOT or Borough Commissioner Constance Moran will be in the coming months, he does feel confident that the Slow Zone will be beneficial for the area, as long as those involved continue to make resolving the problems surrounding the Oval a priority.

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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.