Yea, it is great for Rhode Island business to make it easy for talented people to commute to another city in another state to help their businesses grow. I bet they are thrilled their taxes fund that.
The alternative view is that without rail it would be harder for those individuals to bring their high pay checks back to Rhode Island to spend their money in the local economy.
That would be true if people moved there because of the stop. I'm not sure Pawtucket is a big draw for either families or singles. I am sure that if there is parking, people who already live in RI will use it to commute to Boston to create real wealth for Boston companies while hoping for marginal trickle-down wealth for RI.
WTF? Yes, collecting income taxes from people who live in your state is how you finance the operation of the state, and is why Rhode Island will still benefit from spending public money that makes it easier for their residents to work in another state at higher incomes. I don't know why you're talking about punishing anyone, or what unpopular choice you think is involved.
RI receives a substantial sum of taxes (income, property, sales), and the residents also support (and grow) other RI businesses. It's a pretty good deal, when the realistic alternative is that those individuals will neither live nor work in RI.
Realistically, Pawtucket will not attract many new residents while allowing some existing RI residents to improve their earnings marginally. There's nothing wrong with people making more money by commuting farther, but the increase in tax base is not likely to be large at the same time those individual increases are being heavily subsidized by existing RI businesses and citizens.