7:00 is not super early, not by traditional standards. And yes, having to sit additional hour in traffic wastes additional hour of your life. Of course they want to avoid that - that does not mean they would be super happy about having to push start toward even more dark hours in the morning.
Maybe depends from culture to culture, from country to country. Here 7:00 is considered rather early.
We've short days in winter so one less dark hour in the morning is one dark hour more in the evening. Around Christmas it gets dark at 15:30. While sun raises at 10:00.
