Are the roads unusable? I'm guessing not; you can clear sidewalks too - central European countries seem to use a small snowplough for the pavements (ie sidewalks), the snow is ploughed on to the road, the road plough lifts the snow to a truck and it's trucked away.
Here in the US it's typical for every house to be responsible for its own sidewalk. So everybody gets it done somehow, by hand, or with a gas powered snowblower, or they hire a service. The same people who mow lawns in the summer, clear snow in the winter. Where the land is public-owned, e.g., parks, the city brings a little machine that's the same width as the sidewalks. Its main attraction is a heated cabin for the driver.
We share a snowblower with our neighbor, but it takes a pretty good snowfall for the machine to be quicker than my shovel. The city plows the streets.
No. 90% of people get it done somehow. The failure of the other 10%, and inability to ride your bike more than ten or twenty houses of sidewalk down the line, stands as testament to concept of professionalized public infrastructure.
That's true. During the winter, I ride my bike in the street. My route is 100% on "tame" neighborhood streets or dedicated bike paths. The city plows the bike paths with the same priority as main roads.
We rarely had an issue with people not having sidewalks shoveled before they left for work in the very snowy city I grew up in. Perhaps it's a YMMV situation.
The city of Rochester, NY also plows its sidewalks, I suspect because it would be unreasonable to expect property owners to do it themselves due to the amount of snowfall. Still, it's nice to be able to walk around in the winter. Technically, the law says property owners are still responsible for keeping the sidewalks clear, but that's mostly to encourage people to disperse salt on sidewalk ice after the city plows come by and to shovel what the plows may miss.
