Chilkat Valley News - Serving Haines and Klukwan, Alaska since 1966

Haines visitors and residents now have a rideshare option for getting around town, five years after a former resident's gig as an Uber driver fizzled.

Summer resident Jax Funkhouser is offering rides in her seven-seater Dodge Caravan on Lyft, a service similar to Uber that can be accessed via a smartphone app.

“It’s a great thing to have in a town where not everyone has a car,” Funkhouser said. “It’s an easy little side hustle for me.”

Funkhouser began driving for Lyft on May 27, the Friday of Beerfest, after a weeks-long application process that involved a background check and virtual car inspection. It was “perfect timing,” she said.

“I got my first (ride) from the American Legion, and the rest was history. I was pretty busy through Beerfest and got great responses from people with just how convenient it was,” Funkhouser said.

She said she has averaged about two or three rides a day since then, admittedly not enough for someone to make a living on, but that’s not her motive. Funkhouser has always enjoyed giving people courtesy rides.

When she barged her car to Haines in April she realized there wasn’t a reliable option for people without local connections to get into town. So she decided to sign up for Lyft. (Uber, she said, would have required her to do a physical car inspection in Juneau, whereas Lyft allowed a virtual inspection.)

Haines Shuttle shut down at the end of January, which played into Funkhouser’s decision, but the shuttle service is running again now. Still, Funkhouser sees herself as filling a different role.

Her van is half the size of Haines Shuttle’s, and “I’m just doing quickies around town,” she said. She said she’s leaving trips out to Chilkoot Lake to the tour operators.

Five years ago, a different resident, Suzanne Ashe, signed up to drive for Uber but stopped after a few months, citing challenges with Uber’s map, which didn’t include popular destinations like the Mount Riley trailhead.

Funkhouser said she’s overcoming the map obstacle by giving free rides, with an ask for donations, to people who don’t have Lyft or want to go somewhere not on the map. “If you want to make a donation, great. If not, welcome to Haines!” she said.

She put up flyers around town with her phone number, so people who don’t have a smartphone or the Lyft app can request rides.

Another challenge has been sorting out how to pay local sales tax. Funkhouser said Lyft currently isn’t programmed to calculate Haines Borough sales tax but that she is working with the company and the borough to solve the issue.

Although Funkhouser is the only rideshare driver in Haines, it’s not clear whether the town’s economy could support a full-time driver.

Similar to Ashe, who wrote in a 2017 letter to the editor that rideshare in Haines is more of a “courtesy service” than career choice, Funkhouser said she’s not sure she wants to drive for Lyft permanently and she doesn’t think someone could make a “solid living off it.”

But she does hope to pave the way for someone to pick up the gig in winter months, when she’s out of town.