context: these are not trash cans for pedestrians to throw their food wrappers and whatnot in, nyc already has plenty of those. these are trash transfer bins for buildings. up till now, the official procedure for the enormous volume of trash generated inside all of nyc's tall buildings was to package it in big black plastic trash bags and pile it on the sidewalk for the trash collection trucks to collect. people have been talking about installing collection dumpsters for decades and i guess mamdani's finally getting it done.
in case you're wondering why the hell anyone would object to not having stinky plastic trash bags piled high on the street at least twice a week every week, or to making the trash collectors' work go faster and be less dangerous, it's because the plastic trash bags get piled on the sidewalk and the bins, as you can see from the picture, will permanently occupy spaces formerly used as street parking.
yes, even in the most pedestrian-friendly city in the USA, where a substantial minority of residents have never learned to drive, car brain is still a hell of a drug.