The biggest rub I see is the fact that cycling just is not seen or treated as a valid form of transportation here in the United States. Consequently any snow or ice removal efforts will be at the mercy of what benefits the most cars.
Studs don't work that well on fresh snow. Studded tires tend to not have the fat knobby tread that is required for that sort of thing. Studded tires do work best on compact snow & ice. Riding in the automobile tire tracks is certainly doable and in fact what I recommend. Car drivers can sometimes get irritated. But, most times they are more amazed than anything. It seems that everytime we get a snow here in the PNW, I get followed around by a curious driver in a 4x Jeep with his gf in the passenger seat until they eventually get bored and move on back to their original errand. (WHOOOOO,! Get sum BRO!
has been yelled at me on more than one occasion.)
The next thing: For rough icy chunk a reasonably good suspension fork helps the studs stay in contact with the ground. Life is just easier with a good fork.
3rd, 3.5 miles can be ridden on about anything. Don't sweat the particulars. A 20yo hardtail with fenders & good lights is good enough. We're talkin' 15-20 minutes of riding. Studs are an asset for this type of thing.
20200115_140437 by
Richard Mozzarella, on Flickr