So if you've seen my projects you know I love exploiting water bugs. After several iterations I now feel confident to release my findings to the public. Behold, the Turbolift!
It exploits two (kinda three) bugs to work. First there is the the southwest water flow bug. If you face flowing water to the southwest you effectively get the buoyancy without the drag. So if you walk straight (don't hold left) into the southwest corner (where the ladder meets the water) you shoot right to the top. Brad timed it and it's almost twice as fast than just climbing normally.
Next is the signs on signs bug, but horizontally. This holds the water up because the water won't flow through them even though you can fall right through them. This holds the water in the air, which breaks your fall. Then you drop right out the bottom.
Really, its just a water ladder and a water brake next to each other, but I spiffed it up with some glowstone and colored wool, and gave it a cool name.
Since these are bugs, they might break in the future. But even if they do break the ladder is still perfectly usable, so you don't have to worry about them breaking and rendering the skyway access towers unusable. Hopefully notch will just ignore this one.
There's one in my castle which falls 80 blocks, and there's one in my watchtower in Bridgeport which is accessible from the Tavern basement. The one in the pictures is the newest one, in the skyway access tower at the spawn. I'd like to build more of them, which skyway towers do you guys should I renovate?