Hundreds of freshly planted trees uprooted to make room for DIY dirt bike track in Queens park: ‘Very selfish’

Hundreds of freshly-planted trees have been ripped out of a Queens park by vandals to clear the greenspace for their DIY dirt bike track — and angry locals are calling on authorities to track down the “very selfish” bikers.

Some 300 shrubs and saplings, planted by volunteers last year not far from a cycling velodrome, were reported to have been uprooted at Kissena Park in Flushing on April 7, the Parks Department said.

“It makes me angry because I love this park. I have been living here for many years. It’s very selfish because this is for the public. They’re only thinking about their own pleasure,” Jane, a Flushing substitute teacher who declined to give her last name, told The Post.

The teacher, who has lived in the neighborhood for 20 years, said she was worried that reckless off-road bikers could potentially hurt her dog, who she regularly walks in the park.

“It can be dangerous if they’re going to be riding their dirt bikes here. They usually ride fast. They could run over my dog,” she added.

Photos of the destruction, which will cost the city approximately $15,000 to fix, show overturned soil near paths filled with deep tire tracks. The paths, which appear to have been used by off-road bikes, are littered with broken branches from trees above and plant roots.

Officials said the vandals dug up recently planted trees and cut down portions of other, more mature trees that were part of a larger reforestation effort across 5,000 square feet of the park.

The city’s parks department is working with the NYPD to investigate the crime, Parks Commissioner Sue Donoghue said in a statement.

“Trees are so essential to our city – not just for beautifying our neighborhoods but also for cleaning our air, providing much-needed shade, and absorbing stormwater. That’s why it’s so unthinkable that someone would do this,” Donoghue said.

Gobind Singh Negi, 55, a former cab driver who takes daily walks through the park, was also angered by the destruction and slammed it as selfish.

“They’re only thinking about themselves. They don’t think about the public. They’re selfish. They should think about the benefits of the park to the public, to the kids…,” he told The Post.

Singh Negi said he’s lived in the neighborhood for 20 years and taught his two sons martial arts in the park.

“I live around here. I come here every morning. I sit in my car, watching, I go walking … I don’t like this thing — what they did,” he said. “I’m just sad to see what happened. People are coming here to take in the fresh air. They come here to take in nature, to enjoy it.”

The former cab driver said he hoped authorities would locate the vandals who caused the destruction and punish them to the fullest extent.

“They should catch them and put them in jail and give them the punishment based on what the law allows. They have to take that step,” he said.

Another local, Sid, agreed the vandals were likely only considering themselves — but hoped they would learn their lesson.

“I hope someone gets the message that it’s the wrong thing to do. I’m sure they’re young people, they’re not old people. They may not think about how people feel about it. It’s all about themselves. I hope it’s a learning lesson for them when they see how the community reacts.”

Sid, who often comes to the park with his wife to exercise, was horrified over the environmental implications of the destruction.

“In terms of the environment, it’s the wrong thing to do — to take out the threes -— especially when you have issues with global warming and the like,” he said.

He added: “If they find out who did they, they should let them do community service and plant them back — that would be great.”