There’s the nether railway to the mesa, which is close.
I think the point of the distance and overworld travel was to make using the iron farm difficult so it would not be overused/abused. The nether path I know goes from the iron farm to Beetopia at -16800 -7500.
The iron farm is just a tool, like Halfway Town as a village, but scroll around out west of there - there’s a whole lot of prime real estate just waiting.
Besides, Halfway Town has to be half way to something. 