Police Get Tires for Snow and Ice

Harvard Police tackled snow and ice for two weeks before the University fitted their police cars with snowtires.

Although the weather service has been warning drivers about hazardous road conditions since the recent snow first started to fall, University Police cars were not equipped with snowtires until Monday.

A policeman in one of the new patrol cars who refused to give his name said yesterday that his car received snow tires on Monday. A source in the police office in the basement of Grays Hall said yesterday that all the cars were equipped then.

In past years the Department of Buildings and Grounds garage serviced police cars. But now the small garage no longer maintains the police fleet, and the University Police must use a private service.

Jeffrey S. Kahn, captain for administrative services for the Police, said yesterday that he did not know why the University Police waited until Monday to get snowtires.

Kahn, who is in charge of the Police budget, added that the decision to wait for tires was not made for financial reasons.

But the snow has not affected police services "any more than the snow affected everything else," he said.