Did you ride here this winter? In my mind it was pretty extreme and I do think the city does a reasonably good job of keeping the paths clear. There were multiple stretches of days and even weeks where they were covered with rutted ice though. No amount of deicer was going to have an effect in those cold temps.
I also think that there's a limit to how far we Minneapolitans are willing to walk in cold weather and I hold these pics out as proof:
I'm talking about the skyway system or "habitrail" as one out of town colleague liked to refer to it. Some people think of it as an abomination: "Any self-respecting city has its foot traffic on street level." But I think it's a sensible approach to promoting commerce in a climate such as ours.
Likewise any transport system we put in place for distances that are longer than an easy walk needs to take into account our climate. The traditional bike just isn't well suited for it. I don't think super human efforts to put everybody on bikes and keep paths clear of snow and ice all winter is the right approach. That will have its own negative environmental impact.
Maybe we open up the skyways to bike traffic. Now that would be interesting.
Short of that perhaps we need another type of human powered vehicle that works better in snow. My guess it might require some electric assist. I have some ideas. I should create a kickstarter project.
Copenhagen might be a great place for a city like Portland to aspire to and there are things that Minneapolis can borrow, but whatever we take from there is going to need some serious adaptations.