alt Hacker NewsMontreal's city leaders might be friendly. Its climate is not. Once the snow falls, the number of bicycle commuters plummets towards zero. Paris, vancouver, the netherlands ... they have stable climates condusive to bike use. At -10 it isnt the cars that will cause a crash, it is the physics of a two rubber wheels trying to navigate on ice.
Also, Quebec is not a city. The city is called "Quebec City" just as how New York and New York City are very different places.
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> the number of bicycle commuters plummets towards zero
That's proof that there's either a lot of progress to be made, or the local culture just isn't as tolerant to the cold.
Cycling around -10 works just fine if the roads have been taken care of (which, in your example, doesn't seem to be case, as apparently they're covered in ice).
With decent infrastructure, the difference between cycling 10 degrees above and 10 degrees below freezing is a matter of outfit.
Tell that to the cyclists in Oulu, Finland. https://oulu.com/en/living/mobility/cycling/
The thing is: after a snow fall, they prioritize the bike roads/lanes before taking care of the roads used by cars.
When I was living in Switzerland, I kept a set of spare wheels with studded tires for those days with risk of ice. Riding on packed snow is perfectly fine on regular tires and ice is not dangerous when you have studded tires.