> I had guessed it was stopped because it came to an unshoveled portion of the sidewalk. If it can't traverse that, it's not made for this city

Have them partner with the city and collect evidence of unshoveled sidewalks. Automatically issue fines based off the collected video evidence.

This is one of those things where if these bots cannot traverse a section of sidewalk, many with mobility issues cannot either. And it's endemic to the city.

In my neighborhood there are $5m+ houses that literally never shovel their sidewalk the entire year, as well as a few businesses on "main drag" retail corridors. Fines for this have become exceptionally rare to non existent.