True… except maybe

places with lots of snow; no reliable snow plowing

People have dag tunnels under snow whenever tall enough. And then they just walk. People usually use Kamchatka, Russia as an example of that, but it happens in other areas as well. Well, that’s the extreme; normally once again people just walk. If you are careful enough, you can avoid getting snow in your shoes even when stepping on loose snow. Most of the time you don’t even have to deal with that because (at least where I live) people just silently all agree to shovel out snow on sidewalks they own. On city/company/nobody owned property, “desire paths” of sorts appear rather quickly. Personally saw lots of cyclists on snow.