I'm in the DC area and we actually drove up to Laurel last weekend. Here are my observations / experiances - Laurel itself isn't bad. Just down the highway south on 295 it gets "yucky". We have some friends who live up near there and commute down into DC and it's about a 20 minute commute on the train. Whenever they want to go out to dinner and out afterwards they have to make the 40+ minute drive down here.