You have a good point. I live in Michigan and recently traveled down to Austin, Texas. The roads didn't seem all that much better but all of the road markings really stuck out to me. Reflectors in all the lines separating lanes, soft bollards surrounding cross walks and parking areas, extra curbs built in for bike lanes.
It makes things look a lot nicer but my first thought was, "could you imagine trying to plow around those bollards, or those reflectors would get ripped up on the first pass."
Northern Europe gets more than enough snow and bollards and reflectors are a thing all the same. It's not a problem if you plan for it ahead of time and design and build things with that in mind.
Austin didn't even have snow plows until 2022, the year after snowmageddon. If I remember correctly, they tried using road graders and sand. Even then, it's generally ice, not snow in central tx, even after removing snow in 2021 there isn't/wasn't much to do about all the ice.
