I'm from Helsinki, where winters are longer and a bit colder than in Chicago, but we get less snow. My main takeaway from that article was that Chicagoans are more willing to tolerate disruptions due to weather. In Finland, people are generally expected to go to work/school even during a blizzard. And some then complain that their morning commute took longer than usual, because snowplows could not be everywhere at once.

It’s taken quite a few public transit infrastructure improvements to make Toronto’s more reliable in snowfall.

Trams used relatively unreliable trolley poles instead of pantographs until ~10 years ago.

Most of the tram network “street runs”, so slow automobile traffic slows them down.

Bicycle lanes become snow dumps when it snows a lot. There has at least been a more recent push to clear them of snow somewhat regularly at least instead of abandoning them entirely for maintenance.

The metro/subway still runs largely above-ground.

Lots of gas/electric train switch heaters installed on the regional train network but it can still fall apart in a snowstorm.

Interesting! I lived in Alaska for several years, and schools would get called off if it was snowing heavily.