Before last year’s General Assembly session, it was clear transportation would be the session’s hot-button issue.

This year that title may go to illegal immigration, but a close second could be fixing — or completely unraveling — the $1.1 billion transportation package lawmakers passed last year.

First: abusive driver fees. Gov. Tim Kaine, most Democrats and many Republicans support repealing the unpopular steep fees lawmakers passed last year for serious driving offenses.

This year, legislators have introduced a host of bills that repeal the fees, including some that would refund citizens who already paid the fees.

Then there’s Republican Del. David Albo of Fairfax, sponsor of the bill that created the fees, who wants to salvage them by making them applicable to out-of-state drivers as well.

How will lawmakers make up the $65 million those fees were supposed to bring in each year? Some Senate Democrats have already introduced raising the gas tax — a plan that can be presumed dead when it reaches the House of Delegates.

The new Democratic Senate majority said yesterday that one of its priorities will be increasing money for the transportation maintenance fund.

That fund is critical to the state’s transportation network — although far less sexy than any appeal for new transportation projects.

The fund currently has a $290 million shortfall. By law, transportation money must first go to maintaining current roads before money is used to build new ones. That means the maintenance shortfall robs the state’s construction project money.

The Democrats have not reached agreement on how to raise more transportation money, but the House of Delegates certainly has no appetite for new tax increases.

Then there’s the danger to the transportation authorities created in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads. These were designed to raise money in the state’s most traffic-clogged regions.

Some lawmakers have introduced bills that would tweak what taxes and fees the authorities can use in the region. Kaine is saying he would support changes, as long as it didn’t reduce the potential amount of revenue that could be raised.

But the future of these fees may be in peril. The Virginia Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday on the constitutionality of the authorities. Last year’s transportation package could quickly fall apart if the authorities were ripped of their taxing power, leaving the state’s economic engines in gridlock.

Transportation remains the No. 1 issue for Virginia businesses. Last year, the state provided a big boost to the aging network. Let’s hope 2008 isn’t the year it all falls apart.