I bike in Chicago year round, and have done so for the past decade. What Chicago has done well:

  * Curb and bollard protected bike lanes (Elston and Dearborn are examples)
  * Large areas painted green at the front of intersections, giving bikes a dedicated place to stop at the head of traffic.
  * Connecting trails and bike lanes to form a network of paths
  * Dedicated bike ways like the 606 and the Chicago river flyover
  * Adding more lane capacity on the Lake Shore Trail
  * The parks district does a great job keeping essential commuting routes on trails clear of snow and maintained
  * Continuing to invest in the rollout of Divvy and add more e-bikes to the fleet

That being said, there are still too many sharrows and painted lanes with no buffer zone (getting doored sucks). There are still too many heavy commuting routes like Clark St where the bike lanes disappear in many sections (near the zoo is still awful). Bikes are still very much de-prioritized for cars, especially when there's construction. We've had significant snow the past few weeks and many bike lanes will just be wastelands of ice and slush until the weather gets warm enough for it to melt.

But we have multiple cargo bike and e-bike dealers in the city, and the more families and non-competitive cyclists we get on the road the better things will get. It really helps normalize cycling as a form of essential transportation, instead of being viewed as recreation and sport.