How do you speed up resoucre gathering?

Gathering can be speeded up:

In the alliance store you can buy Gather Bonus that will increase the speed by 50% for 24 hours. If you don't have then available ask the alliance to put some in the store.)

Be a Farmer and use the class APC. This will have 50% speed boost and 100% extra capacity.

Research the 'City Development' tree. There are items to boost each resource gathering speed by up to 30%