HandyDart workers in Metro Vancouver voted Wednesday to reject a proposed contract that would have ended a strike stretching into its ninth week.

After more than a week of negotiations and two days of voting, 58 per cent of union members voted not to accept a mediator's recommendations.

"The feedback we're getting is that there is a lot of deep mistrust of this company among the members and a lack of faith that they can deliver quality service to our disabled passengers in the long-term," said Tyler Felbel, who speaks for the Amalgamated Transit Union.

The HandyDart service provides door-to-door public transit around B.C. for people with mobility impairments, but the dispute applies only to union workers in the Metro Vancouver area.

Felbel said the ATU hopes to get back to the table as soon as possible to get HandyDart buses back on the road.

Zdenka Buric, a spokesperson for the employer MVT Canadian Bus, said the company offered to extend a municipal pension plan to all employees and increase wages — two things the union raised as issues early in the strike.

"We're very disappointed because we had hoped that we would be able to resume services to all of the passengers who rely on HandyDart," Buric said.

"More than anything we wish that we could resume full service levels, so we're going to try to our very best to do what we can so that we can move more folks around."

Buric said the company plans to ask the Labour Relations Board to increase essential service levels for HandyDart. Currently, only HandyDart services for renal dialysis and cancer patients are considered essential.