It's just past 10 a.m. on a Tuesday. Outside the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, cars and cabs zip down Flatbush Avenue in classic New York style: accelerate, stop, honk, repeat.

The man we're here to see, Winston Williams, is a few blocks north.

"I'm doing a U-turn. I'll be there in 20 seconds," he tells us over the phone, before abruptly hanging up.

Twenty seconds later, traffic be damned, a white van skids to the curb in front of us. Although nobody's in the back seat, the sliding door still opens. Winston's up front, smiling beneath thick dreadlocks and navy blue sunglasses.

"All right, guys. Get in."

Image: Mashable

Winston has owned Blackstreet Van Lines, a commuter (or "dollar") transit service, since 2001. For $2, he'll pick up passengers anywhere on Flatbush Avenue, between Kings Cross and downtown Brooklyn. It's not a bus or cab service; it's not even affiliated with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), New York's official transportation corporation.

In short, it's a bare-boned van service that runs through neighborhoods with poor access to the subway or bus.

Winston's particular company is one of many. Since the early 1980s, commuter vans just like it have sprung up across similar neighborhoods in both Brooklyn and its northern neighbor, Queens. More than 300 vans are currently licensed in both Brooklyn and Queens.

They used to be illegal. After the New York City transit strike in 1980, which shut down all subways and buses for 10 days, residents in southeastern Brooklyn used their own vehicles to carpool riders into Manhattan. When the strike ended, the idea stuck — much to the dismay of MTA employees, who felt the commuter vans were stealing their customers.

In the mid-1990s, advocates for the vans pushed to make them legal, and the city eventually opened up an authorization process with the Department of Transportation. Now, anyone interested in authorizing commuter vans can go through the regular process of applications, hearings and insurance fees.

Most of the rules are the same: If you're a commuter van driver, you can't stop at bus stations or drive along bus routes, and you need a to provide a manifest of your stops to your customers.

As we accelerate, stop and honk down Flatbush Avenue, Winston points to a canvas rope attached to the sliding door's handle. It drapes across the back seat and up to the steering wheel.

"This is how I open and close doors for passengers from up here," he says. "Not bad, huh?"

He stops a few blocks into our trip to pick up a passenger. The man, who asks to remain anonymous, is wearing dark sunglasses and holding two one-dollar bills in his right hand. We pick up three more passengers as we drive deeper into Brooklyn. Most are shy to speak, too — understandable, given the two strangers greeting them with cameras from inside a narrow, 14-seater van.

A woman passenger, after chatting with the man in dark sunglasses, signals for Winston to let her out. As she leaves, the man turns to us with a cheeky grin.

"One of the greatest things about commuter vans," he says. "It's a place to meet girls."

Winston rolls his eyes and pulls the door shut with the canvas rope. We accelerate, stop, honk, repeat.

Video filmed, edited and produced by Kenny Suleimanagich.