This would be prohibitively expensive due to the number of underground utilities. In Manhattan, there isn't even a map of all pipes/etc. under a given street or sidewalk, because they were laid so long ago - every time digging is done, they need to carefully dig it up and see what's even there and document it.

So there's no way to even figure out how this could be done without doing all the digging, etc., and at that point the expense is prohibitive.

Not to mention that building that system would require giving up parking spots for the construction, which would cause the same political pushback from the same opponents, so at that point you might as well just do above-ground collection for a fraction of the price, since you'll be fighting the same political battles either way.

They are still not going to allow for parking spaces. They need to be crane lifted to empty so it's a no parking area anyway.

Still great! No smell, less sidewalk space wasted, and garbage trunks can be less frequent since the containers are a huge underground volume.

There are probably too many underground utilities in most areas.