Engineered For Transit, Built For Phoenix
On any given weekday, you can find about 45,000 people riding the Valley Metro Rail in Phoenix, Arizona. A 5.5-mile expansion project in 2025 aimed to connect downtown Phoenix to Baseline Road, with eight new stations and 14 additional trains.
The South Central Extension/Downtown Hub project also introduced broader corridor improvements, including enhanced bike and pedestrian features, more shade, public art and 30+ miles of underground utility upgrades.
That vision required a partner with deep roots in the Phoenix system. Valmont has designed and manufactured lighting and overhead contact system (OCS) infrastructure for most of the existing Valley Metro Rail lines and executed countless urban transit projects throughout the U.S. That system-level familiarity and deep experience positioned its team perfectly to assist with this project, bringing highly precise lead times that kept the major transit project moving on time.
In collaboration with longtime partner, Mass Electric Construction Co. (MEC), a subsidiary of Kiewit Corporation, the team created additional combination lighting and OCS poles for the extension. Valmont also developed special twin 20-foot davit luminaire arms designed to light the roadway while maintaining a more unified corridor appearance in between the combination poles.
These unique structures quickly became one of the project’s defining features. By combining overhead contact system and lighting functions in select locations and alternating them with separate twin-davit lighting poles, the design created peak visual continuity along the new routes.
To support both durability and appearance, the team coated every structure with prime and liquid topcoat over galvanized steel. Galvanizing provides strong long-term corrosion protection, while the topcoat delivers the gloss and color retention needed for a more polished look in a highly visible urban corridor.
Today, around 9,000 people use the new rail extension each day, already expanding access to better jobs, health care and education.
Source Links:
https://www.phoenix.gov/newsroom/public-transit-news/valley-metro-highlights-significant-progress-in-security-across-.html
https://www.valleymetro.org/news/2025/04/south-central-extension-downtown-hub-light-rail-expansion-opens-saturday-june-7
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