Vertigo

Yesterday morning we walked over two bridges over the Ottawa River.

First, the Cartier-MacDonald, a continuous span girder bridge crossing the river at a point where it is about half a kilometre across, seen in the distance in the illustration left. There is a significant hump in the middle, not clear from the illustration, certainly when viewed from the south on foot and certainly a bit of a pull to the top on a bicycle.

Second, the Alexandra, a truss bridge crossing the river at a point where it is about a third of a kilometre across, seen in the foreground. Quite flat and perhaps a little lower than the first.

Now I have had vertigo for most of my life and it is getting slowly worse. But it is capricious in the sense that sometimes it kicks in and sometimes it doesn't and in this case it was much stronger on the first bridge, from south to north, than on the second, from north to south, back to Lower Town.

The walkway on the first bridge was on the far side, a narrow path, on concrete I think. On the left, a two feet concrete barrier between us and the traffic (going the same way as ourselves) and on the right, an open barrier of steel, about four feet high. One one very conscious of the traffic whizzing past, it was all very open & exposed and when I was not admiring the fine views I was all too conscious of how high up we were.

The walkway on the second bridge was on the near side, a wide, close boarded path (rather like that on some seaside piers at home in the UK), maybe twelve feet wide. On the left, the trusses of the bridge proper and on the right, an open barrier of steel, much like that on the first bridge. Much more comfortable.

Thinking it about it this morning I think there were three relevant differences. First, the first bridge was longer, higher and humped. The river did seem very wide and one did seem very high up, with the impression of height strengthened in that one climbed up one side and went down the other. Perhaps a question of scale in that I do not get vertigo on its smaller cousin in London, Waterloo Bridge. Second, with the high trusses to the left, the second walkway was much more enclosed. I do not, for example, get vertigo in aeroplanes, Third, the wide second walkway was much more like a regular path and one could walk much further away from the barrier. Far less conscious of the height over the water, far more comfortable. But not to the point where I was very happy about leaning over the barrier.

I should say that I once chickened out of walking Brooklyn Bridge in New York, telling myself that I did not really have the time to negotiate the approach roads. But I did just about manage Clifton Bridge in Bristol. And as far as I can remember I was OK on the bridge over the Loire at St. Nazaire, which seems odd looking back. Big and very open in streetview.