A state proposal stating that localities should maintain their own secondary roads received a large rebuke on Nov. 6 from one major candidate for office.

Former Gov. Tim Kaine (D), who is running for the U.S. Senate in 2012, said in an interview that he rejects the notion raised by the Virginia Department of Transportation that localities need to fix some of their less-traveled roads because the state is running out of money.

"Yeah, I think it's a bad idea. I think it's a horrible idea that the state is pulling back on their responsibilities," said Kaine on a campaign stop for local Democrats in Woodbridge.

Kaine served as governor from 2006 to 2010 and stepped down earlier this year from his post as chairman of the Democratic National Committee to run for Senate.

He faces two nominal primary challengers from Fairfax County and is likely to face the Republican frontrunner, former Sen. George Allen, in the general election next year.

Citing his own tenure in office, Kaine made the case that the state government "getting to the place where our idea is push it off on the localities and beg money from the feds. But in terms of the state stepping up to their responsibilities to transportation fixes, that's been a real problem."

While noting that there is a roll in transportation for both localities and the federal government, he added that Virginia as a whole has "got a responsibility too.

"Oh, it would be a massive unfunded mandate and the people in every community in Virginia would start to see the quality of their roads degrade and a state pushing it off on local governments would just mean that local officials, if they wanted to maintain roads, would have to raise property taxes," said Kaine.

The issue came up after George Mason University professor Jonathan Gifford published a report commissioned by VDOT this summer stating "the condition of the secondary system is deteriorating" within the commonwealth.

He added that "in recent years the VDOT secondary construction program has provided minimal funding support for constructing new roads in the secondary system."

VDOT Secretary Sean Connaughton, a former chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, said in a June statement, "Our secondary road program is facing an enormous array of challenges. VDOT’s current resources are sufficient to do a few missions well or many missions inadequately."

Proposed "policy options" for addressing the problem include, among other items, "empowering counties to raise revenues; imposing devolution on all counties; and imposing devolution on select urban counties," according to the study.

Prince William is in a unique situation in that the county already does build some of its own roads. Locally, that includes the widening of Linton Hall Road and parts of U.S. 15 among other areas.

However, the state government is in charge of fixing wear-and-tear issues with those roads.

"The maintenance responsibilities are massive," said Kaine. "And so if you take Prince William, which has already been stretched economically, like everybody has in these tough budget times, and somebody says, ‘You've got all the maintenance responsibility too,’ that's just a state that's abdicating its responsibility."

Meanwhile, Neabsco Supervisor John Jenkins (D) gave the proposal dim chances for actually become law.

"I don’t think it’s going anywhere," he said.