To realize the purpose of enhanced nitrogen removal (TN<5 mg·L-1) in step feed process treating urban wastewater, by using SBR reactor, the nitrite accumulation, variation of pH and ORP as well as dynamic properties during denitrification with methanol and glucose as the sole carbon sources are investigated in details. The results show that for both carbon sources, serious nitrite accumulations are observed during denitrification under different ratios of nitrogen and carbon (C/N). With identical C/N, when glucose is used as carbon source there is more maximum NO2--N accumulation concentration. However, NO3--N reduction rate is faster than NO2--N reduction rate for both carbon sources. Furthermore, with the increase of C/N, the maximum NO2--N concentration increases and the time in which the NO2--N achieves the highest concentration is accordingly shortened. For glucose, however, under high C/N ratio (C/N=29.3) both the denitrification rate and NO2--N accumulation concentration decrease. Besides, the changes of pH and ORP reflect the variation of NO2--N accumulation concentration well because pH and ORP have the significant relationship with NO2--N concentration. The second inflexion on curves indicates the real end of denitrification process.